New opera about Walt Disney puts his life in a different light

An opera focusing on the life of Walt Disney premieres in Spain later this month without any of the iconic characters he created.

Based on Peter Stephan Jungk’s novel and written by composer Philip Glass, "The Perfect American" imagines the final years of Walt Disney’s life.

The twist, according to the The Guardian, is Disney is portrayed as "a megalomaniac with McCarthyite, racist and misogynist tendencies, so it is clear why the global entertainment corporation has denied rights. Yet, ironically, the most damaging charge the new opera levels at a man whose vision continues to dominate children's culture is probably the claim that he did little actual work on the drawings that made him famous."

Clearly, this is not the type of project The Walt Disney Company would want to partner with so, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and others are off limits.

The theater group will be using using animal imagery, puppets and shadow plays to create the abstract world, John Berry, artistic director of English National Opera told The Guardian.

The novel is about Wilhelm Dantine, a German immigrant and cartoonist fired by Disney for protesting Walt's supposed refusal to open his Anaheim theme park to Nikita Khrushchev in 1959. The fired employee stalks his former boss getting an inside like at him.