Operatic Baboons

I've just read about a recent performance of an opera about baboon society. In The Okavango Macbeth, composed by Tom Cunninghaman with a libretto by Alexander McCall Smith, a female baboon goads a young male to take over their troop. A favorably-reviewed benefit performance in Edinburgh on May 5th had personnel from RSAMD and Edinburgh Studio Opera. The Herald Scotland reports, "Director Nicholas Ellenbogen drew some uncannily realistic baboon behaviour from the cast." The Economist notes, "two haunting notes heralded a procession of hornbills, oryx, flying owls, buffalo, impala, elephant, giraffe, warthog and porcupine." Eat your heart out, Lion King!