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Music Interview: Soprano Emalie Savoy

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Previews; Published on Wednesday, 30 May 2012 20:00; Written by Kevin Filipski

New York Philharmonic

Music by Falla and Orff

May 31, June 1 and 2, 2012

Composer Manuel de Falla

When Spanish composer Manuel de Falla died in 1946, he left unfinished his magnum opus, the patriotic cantata Atlántida, which he had been working on for the last 20 years of his life. Although it was finished in 1958 by Ernesto Halffter and premiered at Milan’s La Scala in 1962, it’s rarely been performed or heard—I have a recording on Allegro of the world premiere—so that the New York Philharmonic and conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos will perform it at all (even if it’s only a scant 25 minutes’ worth of excerpts) is very welcome.

With the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and Spain’s Orfeón Pamplonés providing the extensive choral singing (also prominent in the main work on this program, Carl Orff’s Carmina burana), Atlántida—based on a work by Catalan poet Jacinto Verdaguer, which tells the story of the lost continent of Atlantis through the prism of Greek mythology and Columbus’ voyages to America—also has golden opportunities for soloists, including young American soprano Emalie Savoy, who sings one of the score’s most memorable sections, “Queen Isabella’s Dream,” at these performances.

Savoy—a fearless interpreter early in her career who recently sang Gluck’s baroque opera Armida and Janacek’s 20^th century masterpiece The Makropulos Case in New York already this year—spoke about coming to terms with this unfamiliar but masterly work.

Kevin Filipski: How difficult has it been to work on such an obscure work as Atlántida?

Emalie Savoy: This is such gorgeous music, but it’s not done very often. In terms of preparation, it’s a very interesting project for me because I’ve never sung anything in Catalan, which is very unique and sounds beautiful. It’s not just a Spanish dialect; it’s actually its own language with its own heritage and history. To prepare, I had to approach it from a linguistic standpoint first of all and track down a Catalan specialist; it took awhile to find someone who knows the language!

Soprano Emalie Savoy

KF: Can you talk about singing this work and Falla’s music in general?

ES: My part is Queen Isabella–she has one solo where she recalls a dream while sleeping in the Alhambra (in Granada), then sends Columbus out on the high seas to discover America. It’s a very long section of the work, and it’s absolutely beautiful music. Falla was a very strong Spanish nationalist composer, and this particular piece was written in a neo-Renaissance style with dance rhythms and syncopations that “feel” old. The poem it’s based on has archaic words and a very exulted, flowery prose. It too has a strong sense of nationalism: it’s about the glory of Spanish history. I’ve sung some of Falla’s songs, but not any of his larger works. The songs were in Castilian Spanish which is very different from singing in Catalan, so I didn’t need to learn a new language!

KF: You’ve performed a lot of 20^th century music, like Leos Janacek, Erik Satie and now Falla. Is it the kind of music you like to sing?

ES: It’s more scheduling, really. I did a lot of early music while a student (at Juilliard), and I just sang Gluck at Juilliard and I did a great deal of Mozart while studying there. It’s fascinating to jump from one country to the next as well as languages and centuries. I from singing in Czech for the first time at the Met in Makropulos to singing in Catalan for the first time. It’s fascinating to find out how many different ways music can be used to express something: I’ve had the privilege to watch my father compose and how he’s inspired by different texts and what styles he ultimately ends up composing in. Every piece by every composer is unique, and I like to find out a great deal about each composer and what was going on during his life—the research aspect is fascinating to me.

New York Philharmonic

Avery Fisher Hall, 65^th Street and Broadway, New York, NY

http://nyphil.org

Women Make Movies Filmmaker Tracey Moffatt at MoMA

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Previews; Published on Friday, 11 May 2012 00:13; Written by Joanne Choi

From May 4-13 2012, Women Make Movies (WMM) filmmaker Tracey Moffatt will be presenting her works at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). This particular event will be special in that it will be one of 40 taking place through March 2013 to commemorate WMM’s 40^th year anniversary. Tracey Moffatt (Austrailian) is a filmmaker, video artist and photographer whose stylistic experiments draw upon both popular culture and her own background, examining subjects such as Aboriginal subjugation, maternal domination, gender stereotypes, and class division. Her most recent work, Montages, which Moffatt collaborated together with her editor Gary Hillberg to create “hymns to cinema”, consists of various scenes from Hollywood films and transforming and interpreting them into Moffatt’s own unique themes.

Some of her works include:

Bedevil
Love
Artist
Lip
Heaven
Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy
Nice Colored Girls

In accordance with her screenings, there will be a discussion session as well, An Evening with Tracey Moffatt, Monday, May 7 2012 at MoMA in which the filmmaker, video artist and photographer will discuss ways she, as an artist, engages in cinema, especially in silent films.

About Tracey Moffatt:

Tracey Moffatt is highly regarded for her formal and stylistic experimentation in film, photography and video; her work draws on history of cinema, art and photography as well as popular culture and her own childhood memories and fantasies.

Born in Brisbane, Australia, Tracey Moffatt first gained significant critical acclaim for her film work when the short film NIGHT CRIES was selected for official competion at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. Her first feature film, BEDEVIL, was also selected for Cannes in 1993. Moffatt's stylistic experiments draw upon both popular culture and her own background, examining subjects such as Aboriginal subjugation, maternal domination, gender stereotypes, and class division. This retrospective of Moffatt’s films and videos offers a comprehensive look at her moving-image oeuvre.

About Women Makes Movies:

Established in 1972 to address the under representation and misrepresentation of women in the media industry, Women Make Movies is a multicultural, multiracial, non-profit media arts organization which facilitates the production, promotion, distribution and exhibition of independent films and videotapes by and about women. The organization provides services to both users and makers of film and video programs, with a special emphasis on supporting work by women of color. Women Make Movies facilitates the development of feminist media through an internationally recognized Distribution Service and a Production Assistance Program.

Women Make Movies (WMM) is the leading distributor of films by and about women and supports women filmmakers with its internationally renowned Production Assistance Program. This retrospective is part of WMM's 40th anniversary. WMM will be celebrating with 40 international screenings and events, working with museums, film festivals and cultural institutions to present films, retrospectives, panels, workshops and mentoring events. The anniversary kicked off in March 2012 with a month of programming on the Documentary Channel and will continue around the globe in the Czech Republic, Argentina, Iceland, Sierra Leone, Turkey and England, among others.

For more information on event & screenings visit: www.moma.org or www.wmm.com

Kino! 2012: New Films from Germany at the MoMA

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Previews; Published on Monday, 30 April 2012 19:08; Written by Joanne Choi

60304 Opening April 25-May 2 2012, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) presents its 34^th annual film segment, Kino! 2012: New Films from Germany, with a fresh new outlook at some of the emerging artists in film. KINO brings you the latest news in German films. This year’s event will be celebrating two very special occasions: the 100th birthday of the world-famous Studio Babelsberg and the 50th anniversary of the Oberhausen Manifesto. The celebration of Studio Babelsberg’s 100^th birthday will be held at MoMa with screenings prior to the Kino! 2012 event. On the other hand, the 50^th anniversary of Oberhausen Manifesto will resume at a later date showcasing four of Manifesto’s signature films.

Studio Babelsberg has produced several works of Weimar film classics as F.W. Murnau's The Last Laugh, Fritz Lang's Metropolis, and Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (starring Marlene Dietrich), in concordance with some recent films: Roman Polanski's The Pianist and The Ghost Writer, Tom Tykwer’s The International, and Roland Emmerich's Anonymous. MoMA’s salute to Babelsberg will include a rare screening of one of its earliest worldwide successes, Stellan Rye's The Student of Prague (1913).

Furthermore, incorporated in this year’s schedule will be Next Generation Short Tiger 2011 screening various student films based in Germany. Six new features will be included at the festival such as the opening-night film, Zieska Riemann's Lollipop Monster, which fuses two very different worlds in a bizarre yet intriguing way. The following three films deals with intricate relationships in humanity: Carsten Unger's Bastard, Leo Khasin's social drama Kaddish for a Friend and Stephan Rick's The Good Neighbor. Andres Veiel's debut feature, If Not Us, Who? takes politics and romance to the next level. Miguel Alexandre's epic The Man with the Bassoon (from a book by and starring Udo Jürgens) travels through time between Russia and Germany. Written and directed by Andreas Dresen, the filmmaker returns to Kino once again with a heart wrenching human drama, Stopped on Track, which includes both professionals and non-actors creating realism.

All films will be presented in its original language with English subtitles. Screenings will take place in various theaters.

For more information on the event and detailed schedule visit: http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1265 or http://www.german-films.de/

Kino! 2012: New Films from Germany

April 25-May 2 2012

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

11 West 53 Street New York, NY 10019

(212) 708-9400

Joyless Street: What's with Women? Strong Directors, Masochistic Characters

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Previews; Published on Sunday, 22 April 2012 11:42; Written by Marjorie Rosen

A Scene From Twilight Portrait This may be the brave new era of Hollywood’s The Hunger Games, the hugely successful saga honoring a young woman’s courage and nobility in the face of death. Still, it’s worth noting that two modest and fascinating 2012 New Directors/New Films selections, written and directed by women, deal not with outsized dystopian adventure or female bravery, but with heroines who choose to act out a discomforting sexual masochism within the framework of their own emotionally impoverished lives.

First is the Russian movie, Twilight Portrait, which marks the directing debut of Angelina Nikonova, who also co-wrote and co-produced it. The title refers to a setting on a still camera, but it also allegorizes Russian society and signifies the twilight of civility in the former Soviet Union. Against the background of a brutal and brutalized post-Cold-War Moscow, where apathy is superseded only by thuggishness among its men, and especially the police, Marina, a young middle-class woman of remarkable grace and beauty, struggles to find connection in her life.

Music Interview: Soprano Emalie Savoy

Women Make Movies Filmmaker Tracey Moffatt at MoMA

Kino! 2012: New Films from Germany at the MoMA

Joyless Street: What's with Women? Strong Directors, Masochistic Characters

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