“When an opera company produces something by Verdi or Puccini, there isn’t quite the excitement of staging something based on the work of your own most celebrated living novelist. Subscriptions are on the rise, and single tickets are hard to come by. This could mean Atwood is the greatest marketing opportunity Bradshaw and the COC have ever had.” Still, the story, which sees the U.S. replaced by a brutal theocracy, is hard to take in print, let alone on stage, and Atwood has always had reservations about allowing her work to be adapted in any way.