A thoroughly mediocre piece, written by committee at the arse-end to the century by a selection of catholic 'experts', this piece is notable only for its prediction of the election of Ratzinger as pontiff more than eight years before the event.
The disposition of the piece was originally a semi-contoured ellipse in which the action would be centred around one man's struggle to ascertain the exact position of the Cardinal's possessions in the week preceding his election, and comparing that state to the relative changes of said items in the time up to but not including the point one week after said election. Unfortunately the initial decision to include the –then Cardinal- Ratzinger's penis as being in a state of tumescence from the off led to one of the more unfortunate episodes in the history of Operatic art, cumulating in the denouncement of the libretto as heretical.
Instead of calculating the position of the man's possessions - a duplicate set of which had been provided by the Church to the compositional committee as inspirational props – the entire piece, save the final scene revolves around the simple question of left or right. These pair of opposites relate solely to the manner of the Cardinal's dress in terms of ' to which side?'. The mainstay of the set therefore consists of an apparently random mis-en-scene appearing as the backdrop (though actually there is a discrete set of 158 possibilities from which one is selected each time) afore of which a pair of gabbling small tradesmen (again, the particular industry is randomly determined) proceed to to unsheathe a magnifying glass and check the position of the 'pee-pee'. Upon pronouncing judgement to an assembled chorus of besuited men at the side of the stage, arrayed in a replica of the UN General Assembly, a lengthy call and repose follows, though never developing beyond the simple motives used to designate either bearing of the shaft. An early version of the piece had a component describing the dead central position, but this was rejected.
The diabolical final scene takes place on a terminal moraine in the Piedmont and has been described by commentators as diverse as Michelle Jurancon and Theobold J. G. Dishwater as 'unparalleled in its lack of taste'. Cursing not only his own God for his exaggerated blood flow, but also several others, Ratzinger takes out his frustrations on a Volvo 142.