Word.ws English Dictionary

CNN opera

CNN opera noun: an opera about contemporary events.

Noun

CNN opera (plural CNN operas)

  1. (derogatory, mildly) An opera about contemporary events.
    • To understand the CNN opera, you have to go back to 1976, when the Robert Wilson/Philip Glass avant-garde extravaganza Einstein on the Beach — not a newsy opera, but a fact-based one — suddenly, surprisingly, filled the vast spaces of the Metropolitan Opera House[…][1995 April 10, Peter G. Davis, “Headline Muse”, in New York Magazine, page 52
    • What has been termed "CNN Opera" continues apace, probably on the theory that if operagoers can connect a work to history, they may either buy tickets to it or enjoy it more once in the theater.[1997, Opera News

Forms of CNN opera

pluralCNN operas

Origin of CNN opera

From the suggestion that such operas are essentially just a report from news channel CNN in musical form. Coined by American opera critic Peter G. Davis in 1995.

Questions about CNN opera

What does CNN opera mean?
CNN opera means an opera about contemporary events.
What part of speech is CNN opera?
CNN opera is a noun.
What is the plural of CNN opera?
The plural of CNN opera is CNN operas.

Words near CNN opera in the dictionary

  1. CNM
  2. CNMI
  3. CNMs
  4. CNN
  5. CNN effect
  6. CNN opera
  7. CNN operas
  8. CNNer
  9. CNNers
  10. CNNesque
  11. CNNs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: CNN opera (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “CNN opera.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cnn_opera. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.