February 2000 Brooklyn Academy of Music 2000 Spring Season BAMcinematek Brooklyn Philharmonic 651 ARTS Saint Clair Cemin, L'lntuition de L'lnstant, 1995 BAM 2000 Spring Season is sponsored by PHILIP MORRIS ~lA6(8IU COMPANIES INC. B~~II Stag~hill Contents • February 2000 Glass Frames 8 Philip Glass has conquered all genres, but his film scores-for movies old and new­ occupy a special place. By Mark Swed . Eternal Weill 34 It's very clear, during this centennial of Kurt Weill's birthday, that the composer of Threepenny Opera is here to stay. By Michael Feingold . Program 17 Upcoming Events 55 BAMdirectory 59 SA 1\/1 Co\/pr Artist Saint Clair Cemin Saint Clair Cemin was bom in Cruz Alta , Brazil, in 1951. He studied at the Ecole Nationale L'lntuition de L'lnstant Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris, France. He lives in New York City. 1995 Painted wood Cemin's sculpture has been exhibited worldwide, including at the Hirshhom Museum and 97' x 91 ' x 36' Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Museo de Arte Contemporary, Monterey, Mexico; Califomia Center for the Arts Museum , Escondido, CA; Centro Cultural For BAMart information Light, Rio de Janiero, Brazil; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham , AL; The Arts Club contact Deborah Bowie at of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Stadische Kunsthalle, DOsseldorf, Germany; The Fredrik Roos Museum, Malmo, Sweden; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Whitney Museum 718.636.4111 ext. 380 of American Art Biennial , New York, NY; Centro AtlanticO de Arte Medema, Las Palmas, Grand Canary Island; Documenta IX, Kassel, Germany; 22nd Biennial Intemational, Funda~o de sao Paolo; Galleria Communale d'Arte Medema, Bologna, Italy; Fogg Art Museum , Cambridge, MA; and the Kunsthalle, Basel, Switzerland . His work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, Paris; Rooscum, Stockholm; the Broad Foundation, Los Angeles. He has executed many private and public commissions including the Reston Town Center, Reston, VA, and the Fountain House, New York City. In 1995 he received the Biennial Award from the Ueno Royal Museum and the Hakone Open-Air Museum in Japan. A major monograph will be published on his work, and a book of his writings will be published in 2000. In addition, the first volume of his catalogue raisonne is now being prepared. 4 Philip Glass discovered his musical Kundun, Martin Scorsese's celebrated 1997 film about the Dalai Lama , opens with a close-up of self while composing a film score, a beautiful mandala painted in sand. Tibetan and has since created a formidable cymbals crash, oceanic chords rumble deep down in the throats of Gyuto monks, and those body of cinematic work. magnificent Tibetan' horns that are taller than a By Mark Swed. man roar their roar. On top of that is a glassy high pitch of synthetic electronic timbre, Philip Glass put it there. And on top of that he added layers of comforting woodwind arpeggios. Its sound is unmistakably Glass, and with vivid effi­ ciency it illuminates the magnificent cosmic spirit of the film. ~ Koyaanisqatsi 8 Bent, a film from the same year, opens in the from the cinema nothing less than a whole new same era but in a world as far from Lhasa as hell performance medium . is from heaven. The scene is a gay cabaret in decadent Berlin just as the Nazis have begun to The range is extraordinary, from collaborating put their clamps on such society. Lowered down with Ravi Shankar on Conrad Rooks' 1966 on a trapeze, an almost ghoulishly ravaged singer underground classic, Chappaqua, to the new in drag croons a sinister song, "The Streets of string quartet score Glass wrote for the Kronos Berlin," accompanied by foreboding piano arpeg­ Quartet to accompany Tod Browning's Dracula. gios. The singer is Mick Jagger, and this song, Well known , of course, is the trilogy of non-narra­ too, is unmistakably by Glass, although now it tive Godfrey Reggio films (and centerpieces of alerts us, with vivid efficiency, to the cosmic ter­ BAM's series)-Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, ror that is to follow. Anima Mundi-in which music and image enliven environment. Another trilogy-OrpMe, No composer has approached the cinema from La Belle et la Bete, Les Enfants Terribles- turns as many different angles as has Philip Glass. three Cocteau films into radically novel forms of Indeed, his middle name is-or it should be-­ opera (the first is a staged work with screenplay film. The alliteration with the first name sounds as libretto; the second, a new score sung along good, as BAM has recognized by titling its four­ with film in live performance; the third, a part series "Philip on Film." The context with the dance/opera adaptation). Then there are the cele­ last name sounds right, as well, if we think of brated near-operatic narrative films: Paul film as a looking glass into new worlds external Schrader's 1985 Mishima and Kundun , where and internal. For Philip (Film) Glass has sought music is used radically as a major element of the Dracula Photo by Photofest continued on page 14 continued from page 10 film. And finally, there is the more conventional­ the Indian concept of rhythmic cycles and a but, thanks to the music, no longer really whole new way of organizing music, which led conventional-soundtrack. Glass' swirling, him to find his characteristic Minimalist voice. immutable music makes Vietnam War violence a haunting horror in Hamburger Hill, and it all too Throughout the 1970s, Glass developed a highly creepily underscores the cinematic horror of Can­ abstract style based upon repeated melody and dyman, to say nothing of Holocaust horror in chord sequences; constant additions and sub­ Bent or the lOW-level gloom of The Secret Agent. tractions, however, lead to metrical flux. It was music that did not tell you how to feel yet got There is a new adjective in the critical vocabu­ along remarkably well with external emotion, lary: "performative." It's a pretentious term, for action, and image. Personally, the composer, the most part, but maybe now it's found a happy friendly and inquisitive, also got along. Indeed, fit. For what Glass has done with film is make it Glass became a composer uniquely poised to not quite performance art but rather performable turn his work toward as many different artistic art, and in return, the film experience has had its situations as he could. It suited theater as back­ own crucial impact on his music. Glass became ground, but in their 1976 masterpiece, Einstein Glass because of film. While a music student in on the Beach, Glass and Robert Wilson invented Paris under the strict contrapuntal discipline of a new kind of opera in which music and image Nadia Boulanger, he took a job transcribing could serve as precise equals, neither dictating to Shankar's music for Chappaqua-a self-indulgent the other. drug fantasy that happened to include a number of 1960s icons, among them Allen Ginsberg, With Koyaanisqatsi, the extraordinary 1983 com­ William Burroughs, Ornette Coleman, Moondog, bination of music and fast-frame imagery that and the Fugs. From Shankar, Glass discovered critic Tim Page has aptly described as cinematic Powaqqalsi continued on page 22 14 sa 1\/1 Brooklyn Academy of Music Bruce C. Ratner Chairman of the Board Karen Brooks Hopkins Joseph V. Melillo President Executive Prod ucer presents Shared Experience Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre Running time: BAM Harvey Lichtenstein Theater approximately 2 February 8-12, 2000, at 7:30pm hours and 45 February 13, 2000, at 3pm minutes, with one intermission Adapted and Directed by Polly Teale Design Neil Warmington Company Movement Liz Ranken Lighting Chris Davey Music Peter Salem Assistant Director Susan Nash The Cast Bertha Harriette Ashcroft Mrs. Reed and Mrs. Fairfax Joan Blackham Jane Eyre Penny Layden Pilot the Dog, Lord Ingram, Brocklehurst, and SI. John Rivers Michael Matus Bessie, Blanche Ingram, Grace Poole, Diana Rivers , and Old Woman in the Ruins Hannah Miles Rochester Sean Murray Richard Mason and Cellist Philip Rham Abigail , Helen Burns, Adele , and Mary Rivers Octavia Walters All other characters played by members of the company. BAM Theater season is sponsored by Time Warner Inc. and Fleet Bank. Leadership support is provided by The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation and The Shubert Foundation, Inc. -~o", · f.:.~,!~e]!.".!'r. The actors in Jane Eyre are appearing with the permission of Actors' Equity Association. 17 Eyrp Production credits Production Manager Alison Ritchie Company Stage Manager Sid Charlton Deputy Stage Manager Jamie Byron Sound Operator Gary Giles Costume Supervisor Yvonne Milnes Wardrobe Mistress Helen Charlton Props Angela Simpson Tour LX Chris Clay Casting Marcia Gresham Set construction and painting Scenery Jessel Company voice work Patsy Rodenburg Dialect coach Jeannette Nelson Original script advisors Debbie Isitt, Nancy Meckler American Stage Manager Kim Beringer Shared Experience Theatre would like to thank the following for their imaginative and enlightened support: Arts Council of England, The British Council ....... ....... Westminster City Council, The British Council, The Esmee Fairbairn ....... Cha ritable Trust, The Paul Hamlyn Foundation, The Clothworkers' Foundation, The Mackintosh Foundation The design and production of the current Jane Eyre costumes have been generously funded by a grant from The Clothworker's Foundation. Thanks also to Method & Madness, Price's Candles, Royal National Theatre, Ryman the Stationers Jane