It isn't over until the (naked) green lady sings

I knew Donald Swann (of Flanders and Swann fame) had written serious music, including musical scores for Tolkien's songs, but I didn't know that he had written the music for a Perelandra Opera.

Perelandra is the second book of CSLewis' space trilogy, where the character Ransom (which some believe is based on Tolkien) is sent to help the "Eve" of that land to resist the temptations from one of the scientists, Weston, from book one.

Although I enjoyed the first book of the triology, I found Perelandra boring, and the third book is good in parts but also gave me intellectual indigestion for various reasons (I hated the character Jane).

The point is that the Lady, the Eve of the newborn land of Venus, not only is "green" but she doesn't wear clothes in the book.

so how did they manage this on stage?

The opera was performed a few times, then went into limbo with the death of Lewis.

well, the copyright cops kept it from being performed, but in 2009 when the copyright died of old age, they again staged the opera. The UKTelegraph has a review here.

the bad news is that although there is a CD available here, no one has bothered to post it on line or on youtube.

as for the Lady, check out this painting to get an idea of how she might look. As the saying goes: She wasn't naked, she just didn't have any clothes on.