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Cinematic Opera / Operatic Cinema Reflections on the Merging of Media A collaboration between the Film Society of Lincoln Center and New York City Opera The relationship between opera and film dates back to the silent-film era, when opera storylines were filmed and distributed with synchronized phonograph records or cues for live musical accompaniment. Since then, these two larger-than-life art forms have had parallel histories, each inspiring artists to find the perfect balance of their components: music, drama, text, movement and visuals. Each has also contributed to the evolution of the other: Opera’s scale and abstraction challenge filmmakers to shed the chains of realism, as demonstrated in Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet’s radically minimalist Moses and Aaron. Film lends opera an intimacy and fluidity difficult to achieve onstage, on brilliant display in Ingmar Bergman’s The Magic Flute. Still other filmmakers have merged opera and film to forge a wholly new and fascinating hybrid, as in Sergei Eisenstein’s stylized, grandiose Ivan the Terrible, with its visual motifs and imposing Prokofiev score. Each screening in this unique investigation of film and opera’s intricate association will be introduced and followed by a talk and Q&A with an esteemed film critic. A complimentary reception in the Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery will follow each event. The series culminates in a Plenary Panel Discussion moderated by Richard Peña, with Atom Egoyan, Julie Taymor, and other distinguished directors who have brought opera and film together. Admission is $35 public, $25 Film Society members, $15 student/senior(62+) for each of the screenings and also for the panel. A PASS to all three events is $75. Online: Visa & MasterCard, $2.50 surcharge per ticket, $5.00 surcharge per spass; Walter Reade Theater box office: cash transactions only. This series was programmed by Richard Peña and Cori Ellison, Dramaturg at New York City Opera. Ivan the Terrible, Parts One & Two Part One: Sergei M. Eisenstein, Soviet Union, 1944 Part Two: Sergei M. Eisenstein & M. Filimonova, Soviet Union, 1946/58 Total running time: 201m (includes a ten-minute intermission) Sunday, November 2, 2008 at 2pm Admission: $35 public, $25 Film Society members, $15 student/senior(62+). After the success of Eisenstein and composer Sergei Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, the idea of a film based on the life of the great unifier of Russia greatly appealed to the Soviet authorities, especially Stalin. Part One chronicles Ivan’s marriage, wars against the Tartars and, in one of the most remarkable scenes ever shot, his stirring return to the throne. Part Two, unreleased until after Stalin, Eisenstein and Prokofiev’s deaths, looks in detail at the Russian court’s attempts to replace Ivan with the simpleton Vladimir. Special guest speaker: Ian Christie, Anniversary Professor of Film and Media History at the School of History of Art, Film, and Visual Media at Birkbeck College, University of London The Magic Flute / Trollflöjten Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1975; 135m Sunday, December 7, 2008 at 2pm Admission: $35 public, $25 Film Society members, $15 student/senior(62+). This delightful rendition of Tamino and Papageno’s remarkable journey in search of love was filmed on a sound stage in Stockholm’s 18th-century Drottningholm Court Theater, filled with beautiful, inventive sets. The singers are uniformly excellent, while Bergman emphasizes the full theatrical experience by integrating the audience’s responses and backstage events within the opera itself. In 1976, the National Society of Film Critics gave Ingmar Bergman a special award “for demonstrating how pleasurable opera can be on film.” We’d be the last to disagree. Special guest speaker: John Simon, longtime theater and film critic for New York magazine and other publications. Moses and Aaron / Moses und Aron Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet, Austria/France/West Germany/Italy, 1975; 107m Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 2pm Admission: $35 public, $25 Film Society members, $15 student/senior(62+). Written in Germany between 1930 and 1932, Moses and Aaron follows the two Biblical brothers as they vie for power and influence over the tribes of Israel. For Moses, revelation and faith are enough. Aaron believes the people need something concrete to direct their belief. Schönberg’s 12-tone music receives a perfect complement in Straub/Huillet’s minimalist direction, as the camerawork becomes the directors’ commentary on the oscillating power struggle at the heart of the opera. Special guest speaker: David Levin, Associate Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago and executive editor of Opera Quarterly. Plenary Panel Discussion: Directors on Opera and Cinema Saturday, January 31, 2009 at 2pm Admission: $35 public, $25 Film Society members, $15 student/senior(62+). Film Society Program Director Richard Peña will moderate a discussion between Atom Egoyan, Julie Taymor and other directors who have brought the worlds of opera and cinema closer together. Back to Top