life imitates fiction

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Werner Herzog filmed Fitzcarraldo, a fascinating and bizarre film about an opera-obsessed entrepreneur with a mad scheme to build an opera house in the jungle and bring Enrico Caruso to sing.

Today, I read about Nueva Germania, a near-forgotten colony founded over a hundred years ago by Aryan emigrants to Paraguay.  An Wagner-obsessed entrepreneur in San Francisco has taken up its cause and is seeking philanthropic aid to build an opera house for the community.

I have an uneasy feeling that somewhere, someone lost a bet of terrible, terrible proportions.