Perfect Lives: An Opera for Television by Robert Ashley (1983)
Directed by John Sanborn
183 minutes
In a loose sense, the series follows lounge singer, "R" (Ashley), and his friend "The World's Greatest Piano Player", Buddy ("Blue" Gene Tyranny), as they hatch plans to commit the perfect crime ("metaphor for something philosophical") alongside the son and daughter of the local sheriff, Isolde (Jill Kroesen) and "D" (David van Tieghem). Yet to say that Ashley's opus is "about" one particular narrative or theme or even medium, would be a disservice to its beautifully digressive nature. Ashley's narration, accompanied by Tyranny's and Peter Gordon's musical soundscapes, flows effortlessly between settings and subjects, sincerity and satire, to create a constantly unfolding image of 20th century Americana.