NEW OPERA

Verdi, Puccini or Wagner weren’t on the bill when the Cleveland Opera opened its season Tuesday night. Unfolding on stage was “Holy Blood and Crescent Moon,” an opera written by Stewart Copeland, 37, former drummer for the rock group The Police.

Copeland, who spent six years with the Police before going on to score movies and television shows and write music for a San Francisco Ballet production, doesn’t put himself in the same league as the masters, but does use arias, choruses, grandiose sets and other traditional opera trappings. His opera is a love story of a prince and the daughter of a Palestinian ruler who help each other despite the wars their people wage.

Copeland’s father headed the Middle East office of the CIA and he grew up in the region. The opera took four years to write and came about when he was urged to make good on a flip remark in 1984 that he might write another ballet “after I finish my opera.”