This week's arts diary

A novel approach to opera There's a school of thought that says Mark-Anthony Turnage's opera Anna Nicole (which premiered at the Royal Opera House last month) and David Sawer's Skin Deep (for Opera North a few years back) were somewhat let down by their librettos. The words were written by, respectively, Richard Thomas and Armando Iannucci . So it will be fascinating to see what two of our finest young British novelists make of the librettist's job. David Mitchell , author of Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green, is working on an opera with Dutch composer Michel van der Aa ; its British premiere is anticipated in the 2013-14 season, and there are also plans for it to be produced in Germany and Holland. According to Van der Aa: "It's a cult mystery opera, which centres around the disappearance of three people." He said his collaboration with Mitchell, whose novels he has long admired, "had really clicked . . . the way David constructs his novels is very musical." Meanwhile, Scottish novelist Louise Welsh , author of wonderfully noirish literary thrillers including Naming the Bones and The Cutting Room, is working on a project with composer Stuart MacRae . The pair have already collaborated on a 15-minute work for Scottish Opera, Remembrance Day, which a Financial Times critic described as "a masterpiece in embryo, full of moods and murmurs and post-Bergian mosaic". Service with a smile Listeners to BBC Radio 4 will know that for Comic Relief this year, six brave radio presenters, including Jenni Murray and Tony Blackburn, have learned the dark arts of standup , each striving to perform the best routine at the Comedy Store in London. Representing Radio 3 is our very own Tom Service , whose comedic skills have, of course, been honed over the years by his writing on classical music for this newspaper. You can enjoy Tom's routine on the BBC website and just as important, vote for him (and donate to Comic Relief) before the lines close today at 7pm. He's been Tom Service, and it's been your privilege to have him here. Free drama tackles the cuts This Saturday, more than 500 people up and down the country will be performing short plays by some of our best writers – including David Greig , Clara Brennan and Dennis Kelly – for Theatre Uncut , a project set up by director Hannah Price in response to our old friend, the comprehensive spending review . The playwrights have all waived their fee, and the short plays can be performed free of charge on Saturday by anybody who goes to the Theatre Uncut website and requests a password to download the texts. Each play lasts around 15 minutes, and has a maximum of four characters. And each – either directly or indirectly – tackles some aspect of the coalition's cuts to public services, whether it's Lucy Kirkwood 's surreal story of a grandmother being sold, or Mark Ravenhill 's drama about students and education. "We're not under any illusion that we can offer a solution," said Price. "But by adding our weight to the protest movement, we hope we can lend a voice."