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# Our Prayers Are Answered as Beast Jesus Stars in a Comic Opera
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/our-prayers-are-answered-as-beast-jesus-stars-in-a-comic-opera/
- Published: 2016-08-15T19:25:31.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:28:59.000Z
- Description: It is the botched restoration that just keeps giving. Beast Jesus — the "Ecce Homo" fresco that now resembles a primate thanks to octonagerian restorer Cecilia Giménez — will make its stage debut this month.
- Author: Claire Voon
- Tags: In Brief, Beast Jesus, Cecilia Gimenez, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:17 (2016, 2017, part 1)

!["Behold the Man," a comic opera by Fowler + Flack (screenshot via YouTube)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/08/beholdtheman.jpg)

“Behold the Man,” a comic opera by Fowler + Flack (screenshot via YouTube)

It is the botched restoration that just keeps giving. [Beast Jesus](http://hyperallergic.com/tag/beast-jesus/) — the “Ecce Homo” fresco that now resembles a primate thanks to octonagerian restorer Cecilia Giménez — will make its stage debut this month. A comic opera titled “[Behold the Man](http://paulfowler.net/BTM/?ref=hyperallergic.com)” will grace the courtyard of the 19th-century fresco’s home, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Mercy in the Spanish town of Borja, telling the entire saga of the work’s transformation: how Giménez’s amateur hands ruined Elias Garcia Martinez’s original portrait of Jesus; the international outrage that ensued; the artwork’s inevitable [meme-ification](http://hyperallergic.com/56013/a-star-is-born-internet-loves-disfigured-jesus-fresco/); and how the Beast, with its fuzzy face and goggle-eyed expression, apotheosized to tourist destination and eventually [saved](http://hyperallergic.com/168990/how-beast-jesus-saved-a-spanish-town/) the small village. “Behold the Man” will debut on August 20th, the fourth anniversary of the fresco’s 2012 transfiguration.

![“Beast Jesus,” right, alongside its former self (photo via @jooohnny32/Instagram) (click to enlarge)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/08/13525361_492487107606448_169117089_n.jpg)

“Beast Jesus,” right, alongside its former self (photo via @jooohnny32/Instagram) (click to enlarge)

Written by Andrew Flack with music composed by [Paul Fowler](http://paulfowler.net/?ref=hyperallergic.com), “Behold the Man” arrives thanks to an [Indiegogo campaign](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/behold-the-man-opera?ref=hyperallergic.com#/) that raised over $22,000 since July to fund various final preparations for the opera’s production. Local authorities are also financing the project, [according](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/13/arts/music/ecce-homo-fresco-borja-opera.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) to the *New York Times* — which is unsurprising, considering the town is working hard to capitalize on Jesus’s notorious makeover, most recently erecting a [spankin’ new arts center](https://hyperallergic.com/with-its-own-arts-center-beast-jesus-rises-again/) devoted entirely to it. Flack and Fowler themselves were quick to note the story’s popularity, beginning to transform real-life drama into entertaining theater in September 2012\. They have hosted staged readings in 2014 and 2015, but the forthcoming, one-night-only August 20th performance marks the premiere of a concert version of selected scenes.

Fowler told the *Times* that the music intends to reflect the wildness of the internet, citing among inspirations “a Gregorian chant, a Spanish fandango, a Renaissance motet, a jota from Zaragoza, a classical chorus, an aria from the Zarzuela, a Flamenco tango, an indie-rock hook and a Swedish-house baseline.” The opera’s website teases that Act 1 features an aria by Giménez (not performed by the real painter); an appearance by Martinez’s ghost, who, “realizing he’s partly to blame for the fresco’s poor condition, he’s caught between pride and shame”; and a song by a new character, Giménez’s daughter-in-law and “the richest, most beautiful woman in town,” who suffers from having too much money. Act 2 recounts how the fresco becomes an internet sensation, how tourism rises (through a “high-energy number”), and how the townspeople eventually warm up to Giménez.

If you don’t see a trip to Borja in your near future to catch the production of the year(???), don’t fret, as a complete showing in Spanish may arrive on the fifth anniversary of Beast Jesus’s birth, and Fowler + Flack plan to market it for future stages this fall. For now, enjoy the trailer below, which features lines from Giménez such as, “It’s faith that guides my brush. I close my eyes and the feelings rush onto a canvas.” And later on, Martinez’s ghost belts out, “When you come to Borja, baby, you better have a glass of wine and buy a hat.”