Don Giovanni...

Hi,
 
http://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/the-25-greatest-opera-films-ever-made/
 
There are some really good things here, and odd ones, too.
 
(haven't seen the link yet! I'm at work!) 
 
You might also want to catch "Aria" that has bits and pieces by various directors and some of them are off the wall and weird, but it also tells you a lot about the director's work. It shows, if anything, how film directors and visualists "see" music! Which, is where I come from a lot of times that is hard for folks to understand, if I don't have the proper words and letters for it. But the only way it would make sense to anyone would (probably) be if it were filmed, so it would be more complete. Now you know about my affinity to "film" ... it's the only language that explains what I see.
 
Zeffirelli's film was ok for me, but a far cry from the well known Romeo and Juliet and then the film on Saint Francis that he did. He directed a lot of operas, and was very musically adept as you can see with the R and J and then the Saint Francis film that got panned silly.
 
Never saw that Parsifal
 
Don Giovanni. Worth the mention in that the film maker was very visual and his cinematographer was Nicholas Roeg (also found in "Aria"), and Nicholas was one of the forerunners of the MTV thing, and one of his first films blasting music at you was "Performance". You have already seen "Memo From Turner" from Mick Jagger, which is from the film! There are a couple of other really strong things in the film with music, specially Gil Scott Heron, and the little guy with "Long Dead Train"! Kiri Te Kanawa is on this one version.
 
The Magic Flute. Ingmar Bergman
 
The odd one: Death in Venice directed by Tony Palmer (200 Motels-Frank Zappa fame), and from the opera by Benjamin Britten. Never seen this one, but would like to compare this to Visconti's film of the same name.
 
I wrote a film version of Tosca's 2nd act for Peter Mark, the director emeritus for the Virginia Opera, as a final for a class on "Opera Directing" for us 4 folks that were directing majors at UCSB. We were the only ones that ever did that and mixed the two areas. Peter Mark was blown away by the idea, concept and the "prompt book" I put together for him. I was secretly hoping that someone would do an opera with a film background, like the ETC La Mama theater group used to do, and specially with "Carmilla".
 
(Sidebar!)
 
Carmen - Carlos Saura. It's a version that is done with DANCE, and is insane. It's almost something like modern dance against old style dance type of story in the film with some dandy lines like ... "you dance with your eyes, not your ass!" ... and it is visually stunning. A really good version of the story, too. Carlos had done an insane series of dance films based on many works, specially Garcia Lorca's work (Blood Wedding), and others. And later, he did "Tango" which is a visual masterpiece that will drive you nuts, and you might enjoy since you are in the Las Vegas, the place for dance and "shows".
 
(Sidebar 2)
The Tango Lesson - by Sally Potter. Awesome film about dance as well with Yo Yo Ma in towards the end.

Thanks, guys! 
 
I've never been into films all that much - but it's never too late I guess, and it does make sense for such things as opera. I'll check that out.

This might be a good time for films as the new TV (well, the big screen that we'll use to watch series and stuff) is supposed to arrive today.
 
It'll be quite a change from watching stuff on my wife's 13 inches laptop.

Rain
This might be a good time for films as the new TV (well, the big screen that we'll use to watch series and stuff) is supposed to arrive today.
 
...

In the old days, there was no internet, so no one "saw", or even "heard" the majority of these things. Thus, today, with all the access possible, the imagination is the only limitation. But sadly, opera is almost dead, and so few of us have any appreciation for it, and while I can appreciate someone like Pete Townsend, or Roger Waters create their works, in the end, they have separated its true value musically, and in doing so, helped kill an artistic style of work.
 
Opera was important to help keep music alive and get people interested in music again! But sadly the 20th century, has been the century that killed the opera, more than anything else, since adding the "visualization" to it, was not something that the folks that liked the opera and libretto wanted to see. We used to get the same comment from the English Department on anything that we did on Shakespeare or Renaissance theater, because we never knew anything! In other words, they had their own "model" that was right, and that was that.
 
In the end, that hurts the work, more than anything else, specially when in the 20th century you even got to see Richard III ride a Jeep and say the famous line!
 
Zeffirelli's cuts are in all the films, and there is no version of a film that is faithful to the libretto's any more than the other way around, although if there is an opera that has been over done in 10,000 ways, Carmen is the one! But that's like saying that "stars" do not make cuts themselves, and all the "famous" opera singers, ALWAYS did that to many pieces, and left the arias more "visible" for them.
 
The Godard piece in "Aria" is hilarious and off the wall! Derek Jarman's in visually stunning. And it goes on.
 
I honestly feel that the one thing that rock music has been missing out on, is coloring and making their music better and more "visible". A rock song has a lot less "lifetime" than an "experience". And this was something that in many ways was a throwback to the grandiosity that opera had to take on in the 20th century to compete with FILM. It had to make it bigger, better, louder and more dynamic! And it succeeded for a while. But then came the 60's and opera just got old, tired and sick, and with arthritic feet, fingers, minds and styles! Now you know what the cover of "A Passion Play" is all about! Excellent commentary, about another art that also "died" with the new audience and music!