There are certain films which have received considerable cinematic attention by directors. While beloved operas like Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ are among the most popular choices—its first silver-screen presence being the silent film, ‘Gypsy Blood‘ (1920), others are equally as beloved. Leoncavallo’s ‘I Pagliacci’ had its first cinematic presence in 1915, Offenbach’s ‘The Tales of Hoffman’ had its in 1923, and Verdi’s {…}
Throughout the Opera Meets Film series, we’ve explored a great deal of opera/film relationships. From stage adaptations of films, experimental works, documentaries, controversial stories and plots, and even dialogues on academic research, the opera-film relationship is complex. The very term, opera, can mean many things, from a metaphor to a psychology of struggle. But practically, when opera is used in {…}
With the publication of Ross Benjamin’ translation of Daniel Kehlmann’s fictionalized story of Austrian filmmaker, Georg Wilhelm Pabst (1886-1967), The Director (2023/2025), preceded by German filmmaker Werner Herzog’s translated memoire, Every Man for Himself and God Against All (2022/2023), it’s fascinating to see how the opera-film relationship can be incredibly heterogeneous. While for Herzog, “when the whole world is transformed {…}
In the West, Richard Wagner’s music is by far the most utilized music in cinematic practice. From the Ring Cycle in satirical contexts, avant-garde metafiction, and even para-documentary realism, to comedy drama and beyond, his presence in film is extensive and ongoing. But if we leave both the US and Western Europe for a moment, what does one find? Is {…}
For the last five months, we reversed course and explored operas based on films, and we now know that it sometimes produces mixed results, whilst at other times, it strips the film of what made it great and ends up alienating the audience from the story. But now we’re going to take a step back in time, something familiar to {…}
Joining the ranks of other screen-to-stage operatic adaptations, Swedish composer Hans Gefors and his eighth opera, “Notorious,” can be considered a contemporary grand opera. Spanning five acts — a number usually seen in French grand opera but also seen in Italian verismo including “Don Carlo,” “Robert le diable,” and “La muette de Portici” — the opera details the complex love affair between a {…}
Photo Credit: Miklos Szabo/Lincoln Center (2011) Having composed the internationally celebrated work, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale‘ (1988), an opera which has gained a truly canonical spot in theatrical repertoire thanks to its global embrace, Danish composer Poul Ruders was and remains on the cutting-edge of opera today. With five operas to his name, among them ‘The Thirteenth Child‘ (2016) and ‘Kafka’s {…}
(Photo: David Bazemore) Now that 2025 has come and gone, and we are facing a new year of possibilities, it’s best to take a quick review of the stories we’ve explored together in the last years before 2026 really begins. While there has been a good deal of historical articles like the cinematic presence of Maria Callas and Wagner, there’s {…}
(Photo: La Boheme movie still press image) There’s no denying it. Italian opera, or ANY opera in another language for that matter, loses something, intrinsically, when it’s sung in English. Additionally, operas performed as a motion picture for cinema lose something more, by necessity, the artists having to mime to a pre-recorded rendition, negating the true passion and emotion of {…}
(Photo Credit: Jo Schramm) Operatic depictions of cruelty, vengeance, wrath, mercilessness, wickedness, barbarism, savagery, and anger seem hallmark elements of the genre itself. From villains like Queen of the Night, Lady Macbeth, and Don Giovanni to ghastly characters like Elektra, Scarpia, Iago, Mefistofele, and Caesar, all the way to troubled souls like Wotan, Giorgio Germont, Turandot, Poulenc’s Chaplain, Anna Bolena, {…}
(Photo: Sakari Viika/Finnish Music Quarterly) Throughout operatic history, family difficulties are among the most widely utilized themes by composers, with the more recognizable feuds seemingly being children and their (step) mothers. From Pamina and her mother (“Die Zauberflöte”), Hansel, Gretel, and their stepmother (“Hansel and Gretel”), Lucette/Cinderella and her stepmother (“Cendrillon”), and Elektra and her stepmother (“Elektra”), there is something {…}