Friday, May 29, 2009
When Erich met Felix
It's Korngold's birthday, and here's an absolute gem of Korngoldiana. This one is Felixiana too - A Dream Comes True, the promotional trailer for Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream from 1936. Chronicling the making of what was then the most expensive film ever created in Hollywood - but careful not to include any of the actual Shakespeare in case it put off the audiences - it contains the only known film of Korngold playing the piano, lashings of Mendelssohn, rare footage of Max Reinhardt himself and the glittering of all the stars at the premiere...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EWK!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
This little film was actually lost for about 30 years - then in 1975 George Korngold discovered that an Australian collector owned an original print and now, all these years later, Mr Ted Turner has restored it so that everyone can enjoy it!
Jessica, Brendan, other Korngoldians, I'm sure you know this but I'll pass it along anyway:
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Das Wunder der Heliane
Oper in drei Akten
Conductor: Uwe Sandner
Staging: Johannes Reitmeier
Costumes: Thomas Dörfler
Stage design: Daniel Dvorák
Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern
Koproduktion mit dem Nationaltheater Brno (Brünn)
Dates
04/10/2010
04/20/2010
04/24/2010
04/28/2010
05/21/2010
06/20/2010
*******
I suspect it'll be heavily cut, the orchestra will be too small by half and the singers not up to the standard the score needs, but it's a staged performance nonetheless, something I never thought would happen.
Happy Birthday, EWK, you were wrong, you music has NOT been forgotten and for this opera fan in Los Angeles at least, it has provided hours and hours of pleasure on recordings and in the opera house.
"A Dream Come True" is included with the Warner Bros. reissue of the film, as well as Olivia de Havilland's screen test and other goodies. For all the stern warnings on the box about not being for sale outside the USA, it's easy enough to obtain, and most DVD players here seem to cope with the NTSC Region 1 format. The film itself is a delight, apart from Mickey Rooney's irritating laugh.
Thanks for the info about Kaiserslautern, Henry. I thought the only option was to go to Brno the following year.
Post a Comment