(AGI) Milan, May 12 - Milan's opera house, La Scala, willlaunch the world premiere of "CO2", an opera commissioned fromGiorgio Battistelli which has been described as original,poetic and having a powerful impact. On May 16 the theatre willhost an extraordinary production, with 90 musicians in the pit,19 soloists singing in nine different languages - includingSanskrit and ancient Greek - a boys' choir singing in Latin, aSri Lankan Adam and a South African Eve. The opera waspresented to the press on Tuesday by La Scala's superintendentAlexander Pereira, together with Ian Burton, who wrote thelibretto, well-known director Robert Carsen, German conductorCornelius Meister, 35, and Milan City Councillor Filippo DelCorno. At the press conference there were also some of the starsingers, including Anthony Michaels-Moore (the climatologist),Jennifer Johnston (Gaia), tenor Sean Panikkar (Adam)and sopranoPumeza Matshikiza (Eve). CO2, the chemical formula of carbondioxide, is significantly in line with the theme of the MilanUniversal Expo: "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life". Theopera takes an original approach to some of today's mostdebated topics: irresponsible consumption, carbon emissions,global warming, the melting of icecaps, desertification and theextinction of animal species. The opera also uses videos byFinn Ross and several potent pictures by Canadian photographerEdward Burtynsky, used as the backdrop for the scene in whichGaia sings. Alexander Pereira faced up to the challenge andsaid: "I believe a theatre should not only do what istraditional. One of the ways of enlivening our opera is todevelop new projects. At La Scala we are always interested inresearch and development, which gives us an idea of how thetheatre can develop in the future." After the success of DieSoldaten in the Piermarini Hall, Pereira not only announcedthat the theatre will stage at least one contemporary opera ayear but also said he was optimistic that CO2 will be an"exceptional performance thanks to Robert Carsen's imagination"and Giorgio Battistelli's "dense and colourful" orchestration.The composer said: "The project has been in the pipeline since2007, even if there have been several variations on the theme.I spent years thinking of a subject that could make us think.Here we are tackling a problem that belongs to our present butthat should no longer be seen from a scientific but from anaesthetic perspective. The biggest problem was that ofdeveloping a script." Ian Burton added: "We were rescued by AlGore's books, but only at the beginning. Later we thought ofbuilding a sort of 20th-century poem made up of verses,quotations, and cross-references. The result is a non-linearnarration. It was very exciting to write an opera for our timeand I had already worked with Battistelli on Richard III. Butin that case we had Shakespeare to support us; not here!" . .