“Opera Kids”, a documentary about “Creating Original Opera” a performing arts program I was part of defining, teaching and implementing in schools, in one form or another for over three decades, is now playing (for free) on-line on ALL ARTS (created by the WNET group).
Max Sturm an opera kid himself before growing up to become a documentary filmmaker and making this film. I show up for a little bit in the doc, along with many colleagues I’ve worked with over the years. We are the talking heads and give context about the program, but the film wisely focuses mostly on the kids themselves creating and producing their own original opera.
You can watch “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” – and many other films – on-line via the LAIFF by going to this link and using the festival access code:
ACCESSLA
You will find my musical Edgar Allan Poe adaptation in Official Selections Streaming Block #2. It will play in the end of the program (you may skip ahead…).
One particularly photogenic part of Naples, Italy – worthy of its own little blog post – is the Galleria Umberto 1. It is a public shopping gallery with apartments built 1887-1890 across from the opera house, and named after the then reigning king of Italy. From Wikipedia:
“The Galleria is a high and spacious cross-shaped structure, surmounted by a glass dome braced by 16 metal ribs. Of the four iron and glass-vaulted wings, one fronts on via Toledo (via Roma), still the main downtown thoroughfare, and another opens onto the San Carlo Theatre. It has returned to being an active center of Neapolitan civic life after years of decay. The building is part of the UNESCO listing of the Historic Centre of Naples as a World Heritage Site.”
The tallest building in the Hudson Yards – also the 6th tallest building in New York City or 8th tallest in the United States – boasts The Edge, a viewing platform on the 101st floor.
Above is a shot I took from 34th street – the particles in the air from Canadian wildfires – it was a “moderate air quality day” unsuitable for asthma sufferers – contribute to the hazy look both of the building from the street and the views of the city from the observation deck. Below the picture in the Wikipedia entry shows the building in clear blue skies not marred by the devastations wrought by Climate Change.
Our friend Mitch suggested we check out the views from the Edge. 3X $50 for timed tickets purchased the experience last Saturday.
After passing through ticket control, we joined the line in a large waiting area with a ceiling of thousands of lights representing Manhattan.
Mitch and Ed.
Then we were ushered through a passage past building support columns lit up like at a dance club.
This long, often stalling line before being let into the elevators up to the platform had us waiting for over thirty minutes – as if for a popular ride at an amusement park. We waited the longest time in this area pictured below that simulated the noise and traffic of a busy subway station – which may be a novelty attraction for tourists (?), but to us natives at least was a nerve grating area to be stuck in for so long. What was the point of timed tickets if it still takes so long to get in, or up? We were beginning to sour at the experience…
Finally we got up to the upper story of two that connect to the outdoor viewing platform of The Edge (as well as hosting an overpriced restaurant).
The Upper West Side in the Canadian Haze.
Looking East towards the Empire State Building.
First view from above out at The Edge observation deck.
On our first stroll out in Napoli, we noticed blue and white banners everywhere. Since it was the day before Easter, we initially assumed the decorations were in honor of that High Holy Day…
But we soon learned that white and blue are the colors of the Naples soccer team. And they were leading the national league this year, so the city was festooned in celebration.
So in this first blog post on Naples I will focus on how the colors of S.S.C. Napoli dominated much of the cityscape.
With images of dearly departed Maradona far outnumbering those of all other players combined.
Maradona has already been beatified as far as Neapolitans are concerned. Certainly there were more street shrines to him than anybody else. (Pope? What pope?)
“The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” screens June 8
on-line via the Brooklyn International short Film Festival
The Brooklyn International short Film Festival will make select shorts – including yours truly’s musical Edgar Allan Poe adaptation – available for viewing on 24FramesHub this Thursday June 8:
The screening had been especially dramatic. The surround sound system in the movie theater was very immersive, making those sections of the film where voice and instruments can be heard in multiple iterations coming from all corners of the auditorium – left right, left behind, right behind etc. – extra unsettling. I was freaking out a little myself, and I had made the damn film and obviously have seen (and heard) it many many times… At the end of the “Pendulum” section a woman could be heard audibly moaning, and I wondered whether she then left the theater.
Spencer Hawken, director of the festival, said during the Q&A that when they screened my first short “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” two years earlier he saw another woman exit the theater in the middle of the screening claiming the “sounds were too unnerving”. Which prompted another patron waiting in the hallway to see the current Hollywood blockbuster to say “Oh I want to see that” and go into the festival screening instead. Oh, the unholy things I do with cellos…
Anyway, that is just one tidbit of the post-screening Q&A, which was great fun.
UPDATE: And here is the video of the Q&A. Things get really fun when the other two actors take over and start asking questions of me, and then one of them does a little “performance”:
Spencer Hawken, director of the Romford Film Festival
And here is a video clip of me accepting the audience award for performance the next day:
The festival was running since Wednesday, May 24. I arrived Saturday and watched many films and chatted with many filmmaker colleagues. The quality of the features and shorts was very high at this festival. My short screened Monday at the end of the day, almost like one of those midnight madness horror films. Tuesday evening was the awards ceremony where I received the Audience Award for Performance, a fine capstone to my Romford experience.
Some pics from the awards ceremony:
That’s me with Steven Sibley, the director of “Deadly Display”, who was so intrigued by the description of “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” he rounded up a half dozen film crew pals to join him in the screening, and ended up being an enthusiastic booster of the film.
Notes from a Composer 