If my rusty
Italian serves me correctly, "
Mass in
Requiem for
Shaggai".
An
opera written in Italian by
Benvento Chieti Bordighera in 1768. Only one
performance of the opera was ever made, and it caused such a
controversy that
Pope Clement XIII banned it in 1769. Bordighera was imprisoned for
heresy in 1770, and he was
executed the next year.
Many
professional musicians have declared the
score to be
impossible to
play, since certain parts seem to have been written for
unknown instruments and
notes that cannot be played. Clearly, Bordighera was either a
genius centuries ahead of his time or a complete
lunatic -- possibly both.
The opera itself is a
strange mix of
science fiction,
fantasy,
horror,
blasphemy, and
stuff that just don't fit anywhere. It tells the
story of the
destruction of a place called
Shaggai, which, to a
modern reader, will sound remarkably like a
planet, instead of the
city or
country assumed by 16th century
critics. Shaggai is run by large white
insects, who
worship monstrous deities called
Azathoth and
Baoht Z'uqqa-Mogg, or
the Bringer of Pestilence.
Because of the insects'
great evil, their
home is
destroyed, but some of them
escape, flying through the
void of
space to
Earth. Once the insects encounter humans, they summon their
dread gods to
destroy humanity. The opera ends, as they say,
abruptly.
Encyclopedia Cthulhiana by Daniel Harms, pp. 131-132