THE FLY. THE OPERA.
:The Synthesis of a Horror/Science-Fiction Movie and Opera.
From behind-the-scenes on the set.
A Horror Drunx exclusive article
by
Lucy Tate
When I read that The Los Angeles Opera (LA Opera) and The Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, France had commissioned David Cronenburg and Howard Shore to come up with something surprisingly new and previously unheard of in the modern opera world, I scratched my head along with many opera buffs, as well as horror/science-fiction movie fanatics wondering how this could be done.
What developed was a major collaboration between the screen and the stage, in a way never done before.
Film director David Cronenburg, Howard Shore (Three time Academy and Grammy Award winning composer), librettist David Henry Hwang (Los Angeles native screenwriter, playwright and Tony Award winner librettist), along with set designer Dante Ferretti (Academy Award winner and six time nominee), took Cronenburg's 1986 screen version of The Fly and the 1957 short story by George Langellan, and turned it into an opera.
The Fly had its world debut at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, France in July of this year, to mixed reviews. However, film auteur, David Croneburg is revered in France, thus, the house was packed most nights and the souvenir shop sold lots of Fly memorabilia, despite the not so positive buzz surrounding the opera.
The US debut was in Los Angeles, conducted by none other than tenor extraordinaire, Placido Domingo. Los Angeles was supposed to host the original debut of the opera (during the 2007-8 season) but due to scheduling conflicts, it was moved to the 2008-9 season, thus, Paris became the world premiere site.
The critics were not kind to the LA production; panned for the most part as being trite and silly, and deemed unsuitable for opera material.
That is too bad the critics didn't "get it."
I guess I am a bit biased being a horror/science-fiction fan, an opera lover, as well as being a singer.
However, I was not concerned with the critics, as was the rest of the Company because this production was new, different, unique, exciting and a genesis of sorts, in the opera world, and will not be the last.
The Beginning: The Fly. The Story
The Fly is a short story by George Langelann from Nouvelles de l'Anti-Monde, although other sources say it was first published in Playboy magazine in 1957.
I am not going to assume anyone who may read this knows the story and/or movies behind the opera. However, most horror/science-fiction fans will indeed know the plot of both versions of the movie. If you happen to be "in the know", then the following sections might be redundant. However, it is necessary to explore once again so that the opera itself will make sense.
There are many similarities between the original short story, the 1958 and 1986 version(s) of The Fly and all of these went into some portion of the opera.
The following is a synopsis of the original short story, taken from Wikipedia (because it was the best source material for this synopsis):
"The story begins late at night when Francois Delambre is awoken by the telephone. On the other end of the line is his sister-in-law, Helene, who tells him that she has just killed his brother and that he should call the police. He does, and they find the mangled remains of his brother in the family factory, his head and arm crushed under a hydraulic machine press.
Helene seems surprisingly calm throughout the investigation, willing to answer all questions except one: she will not give the reason for killing her husband. Eventually she is sent to a mental asylum and Francois is given custody of his brother's young son, Henri. Francois goes to visit her often, but she never provides the explanation for the question that he most desperately wants to know. Then one day she inquires how long a housefly's life span is. Later that evening, he hears Henri mention something about a fly with a funny white head. Realizing that this might somehow holda clue to the murder, Francois confronts her with the news that Henri spotted a strange fly, and Helene becomes extremely agitated at this news. Francois threatens to go to the police and give them the information about the insect if she does not tell him what he wants to know. She relents and advises him to come back the next day, at which time he will receive his explanation. The next day she gives him a handwritten manuscript, and later that night he reads it.
His brother, Andre Delambre, was a brilliant research scientist who had just found an amazing discovery. Using machines that he called disintegrator-reintegrators, Andre could instantaneously transfer matter from one location to another through space. He had two such machines in his basement, one being used as a transmitter pod, the other as a receiver. Helene's manuscript reveals that at first Andre encountered several flukes, including an experiment in which he transmitted an ashtray that reintegrated in the receiver pod with the words "Made in Japan" on the back written backwards. He also tried transmitting the family cat, which disintegrated perfectly but then never reappeared. Eventually, however, he ironed out the mistakes and found that the invention worked perfectly. Then one day Andre tried the experiment on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a tiny housefly had entered the transmitter pod with him, and when he emerged from the receiver, his head and arm had been switched with that of the insect. He tells Helene that his only hope of salvation is for her to find the fly so that he can transmit himself with it again in the hopes of regaining his missing atoms. A search of the house proves fruitless, and in desperation Helene begs him to go through once more in the hopes that the transformation might reverse itself. Not believing it will work, but wanting to humor her, he agrees and goes through. When he steps out of the receiver Helene excitedly pulls off the cloth sack that he has been covering his head with, and she is greeted with a truly horrifying sight. Not only is his head now that of a fly, but some of the missing particles from the family cat were also mixed in with his scrambled anatomy during the last experiment. Now realizing that he has been transformed beyond all hope, Andre destroys the pods and all of the work in his lab and devises a way to commit suicide while at the same time hiding from the world what he had become. He shows Helene how to operate the hydraulic press and then places himself under it. Obeying his last wish, Helene pushes the button to lower the press and kills her husband.
Francois goes to see Helene the next day but receives heartbreaking news. Unable to live with her memories, she committed suicide during the night. Later that evening Francois invites Inspector Charas, the policeman in charge of the case, over to his house for dinner. After finishing their meal, Francois allows him to read Helene's manuscript. After reading it, Charas declares that Helene must have been mad, and they both decide to destroy the "confession." But just as the story ends, Francois tells Charas that earlier that day he buried a fly at his brother's graveside. It was a fly with a white head and arm."
As one can easily read, the original short story and the subsequent 1958 movie are almost exactly alike with some liberties taken by the screen writer, James Clavell, and director, Kurt Neumann. However, for the most part, the 1958 movie keeps the original feel and sensibility of the story.
THE FLY. THE MOVIES
The Fly (release date- August 29, 1958)
Screenplay:
James
Clavell
Directed and produced by Kurt Neumann
Based upon the short story
by: George Langelaan
Starring:
Vincent Price
Al Hedison
Patricia
Owens
Herbert Marshall
Kathleen Freeman
Betty Lou Gerson
Charles
Herbert
Music by Paul Sawtell
The movie begins with a watchman finding a man's head and arm crushed beneath a heavy metal press. A woman named Helene Delambre (Patricia Owens) telephones her brother-in-law, Francois Delambre (portrayed by Vincent Price) to tell him that she has murdered her husband. Francois calls the police and Helene admits killing him but refuses to state why.
Later, Helene is tricked by Francois into revealing why she killed her husband to Inspector Charas (Herbert Marshall).
But let us start at the beginning:
A Canadian scientist, Andre Delambre (Al Hedison), has invented a "teleportation" device (he uses the term 'disintegrater-integrater' in the film). He has a number of setbacks including his first attempt to teleport something live because he believes he has ironed out the earlier problems.
First, the family's pet cat disappears from one teleportation booth but does not appear in the other, and all that can be heard is a faint cat's meow. Andre sorts out the problem and when his wife, Helene, has found out what has happened to the family pet, she has him promise not to use animals any more. So what does the scientist do? He decides to try it on himself! The first time works, but, unknown to him, a fly enters the booth with him and the two are scrambled together. Andre emerges as a half-man, half-fly hybrid; a human with a fly's head and insect left arm and claw (the fly's leg). However, movie audiences can't see this as it is not shown happening. We first see Andre in this state (though covered up) for fifty six minutes into the film.
Charles Herbert and Vincent Price in the infamous "spider web scene" in 1958's The Fly.
Helene eventually finds out something is terribly wrong as she now sees her husband with a cloth over his head (Hedison plays the character all through the film) and hidden arm. He eventually tells her, through type-written messages (as he has lost his ability of speech) what has happened. When she first sees his claw, Helene screams in horror, then later sees his fly head and screams even more. The viewing audience sees her screaming in multiple images, as a fly would see.
Andre's wife, son, Henri (Charles Herbert) and the maid try to find the "fly with a white head." Actually, their son had caught it just after the transportation accident occurred but had let it go, before any of them knew what, or rather, who, it was. Andre attempts to reverse the process and return himself to normal, but that doesn't work because he realizes that his mind is being overtaken by that of the fly. Thus, he asks his wife to kill him using the fifty ton pressure machine press.
The Inspector, upon hearing this story, cannot believe it and decides to have Helene charged with murder but with a plea of insanity. As they come to take her away, the young son again finds the fly. Francois and the Inspector rush to see it. In the famous ending, the scientist's brother and Inspector Charas hear a tiny voice coming from a nearby spider's web! They see it is a tiny fly with Andre's head and arm. He is shrieking, "Help me! Help me!" as it is about to be devoured by a huge spider. The inspector, horrified by the sight, picks up a rock, thereby crushing the prey and predator.
The film ends with Helene recovering (she has been in an asylum). Since the Inspector had seen the fly with the human head, he knew her story was true and along with her brother -in-law, Francois, concoct a story where Helene had committed suicide, thereby escaping any murder charges.
The Fly is available on DVD and in the commentary states that the film took only eighteen days to make and unexpectedly made three million dollars! This was one of three films Al Hedison made before moving studios and being made to change his name from Al to David. The Fly was made in CinemaScope and Terror-Color by De Luxe.
THE FLY (release date- August 15th, 1986)
Directed by David Cronenberg
Produced by Stuart Cornfield
Screenplay: Charles Edward Pogue and David
Cronenberg
Starring:
Jeff Goldblum
Geena Davis
John Getz
Music by Howard Shore
Produced by Brooksfilms and 20th Century Fox, this film was a big budget remake of the 1958 film of the same name, but with a
decidedly "Cronenbergian" plot. The film is more a re-conceptualization than remake. It takes the basic ideas of the 1957 short story and
the 1958 film and then goes in a completely different direction that only Cronenburg could do. The soundtrack was composed by award winning composer Howard
Shore (later to collaborate on the opera with Cronenburg).
This version of The Fly is rare in that it was actually very good but that is open to interpretation and opinion, I suppose.
Of the many nuances of the darker side of humanity found in many of David Cronenberg's films, The Fly is no exception. It delves deep into themes of metamorphosis and body disfigurement, as well as the darker aspects of human behavior and emotion. Also included is the underlying theme of the doomed love affair between the characters Seth Brundle and Veronica Quaife, as well as the rivalry between Brundle and Stathis Borans (Veronica's former lover and current editor of the magazine she works for.)
The Beginning: "Living Flesh"
At a party held by Bartok Science Industries (BSI), Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum), a brilliant but eccentric scientist, meets Veronica Quaife (played by Geena Davis), a journalist for Particle magazine. BSI funds Brundle's scientific research. He tells Veronica that he's working on a project "that will change the world."
Intrigued by what the charming scientist has told her, Veronica goes to Brundle's warehouse laboratory (where he also lives) so that he can show her his invention: a set of "telepods" that instantly teleports an object from one telepod to another. Impressed by his work, Veronica agrees to document Seth's work. There is, however, one glitch in the system. Although the telepods can transport inanimate objects perfectly, they do not work on living things. Brundle unintentionally experiences this fact when he attempts to teleport a baboon, which when transported, comes back literally turned inside out! Before long, Brundle and Veronica begin a romantic relationship, and their first sexual encounter provides inspiration for the scientist. He realizes that the machine is not perfectly "reassembling living objects," but is rather "interpreting" them, and decides he needs to reprogram the telepod's computer to deal with "living flesh."
Seth decides to teleport a second baboon. This time, the baboon comes through the pod, with no apparent harm. Excited by his success, Brundle wants to spend a romantic evening with Veronica, but she suddenly has to leave before they can celebrate. Seth proceeds to get drunk, and fueled by poor judgment and alcohol, soon becomes paranoid, thinking that Veronica has rekindled her romance with ex lover and editor of Particle, Stathis Borans (John Getz). What she is really doing is confronting Borans about his continuing interference in her life, and his threat to reveal the existence of the telepods.
As in other Cronenberg films, the delicate and fragile nature of the human condition is further explored. A drunk and jealous Brundle decides to teleport himself; a decision he would come to regret. His decision to do this is partly due to the fact that the second baboon showed no signs of damage or side effects since being teleported. In Brundle's mind, it is also a way to get back at what he imagines is Veronica's infidelity, and also to provide the teleportation system with its first human subject. Why not himself? Just as the telepod door automatically closes, however, a musca domestica (the common housefly) slips into the pod, unseen by Brundle who is too drunk and distracted. After being teleported, Brundle emerges from the receiving pod, seemingly normal.
Sometime after his teleportation, Seth and Veronica reconcile. He begins to exhibit a sense of intoxicating euphoria, as well as a renewed vigor, and a heightened sexual potency. He also develops a voracious taste for nothing but candy bars and other sweets. However, he also becomes very arrogant and violent. Veronica senses something has gone terribly wrong and when Brundle eventually asks her to teleport, naturally, she refuses. Brundle, in his arrogance, takes off, claiming that she cannot "keep up" with him.
Brundle then meets a sexy woman named Tawny at a bar, and arm wrestles with her boyfriend, Marky, with Tawny as the prize. After using his superhuman strength to snap Marky's arm like a twig, Brundle takes Tawny home for the night.
Becoming "Brundlefly"
The next morning, Veronica arrives at the warehouse in time to prevent Brundle from forcibly teleporting Tawny, telling her to "be afraid, be very afraid". This statement would later become a phrase sung various times throughout the opera. Tawny quickly runs out of the warehouse. Veronica tries in vain to tell Brundle that something is happening to him, but he throws her out of his warehouse and tells her "don't come back!"
Later, when his fingernails start falling off and pricklier like hairs are growing out of his body; Brundle realizes something went wrong during his first teleportation. He checks his computer's records, and discovers that the telepod computer was confused by the presence of two separate life-forms in the sending pod. The result: the telepod has merged him with the fly at the molecular-genetic level. Brundle suddenly realizes that he is slowly becoming a hybrid creature that is neither human nor insect: "Brundlefly," a name Seth starts referring himself to.
Veronica and "Brundlefly" Reunite
After a month-long period of self-imposed isolation, Seth has rapidly deteriorated, becoming progressively less human in appearance. He also exhibits fly-like characteristics, as when he becomes unable to eat solid food, he must vomit digestive enzymes, or "vomit drop" as he calls it, in order to dissolve the food before he can eat it. Soon, he discovers that he can also cling to walls and climb all over his lab upside down.
He also develops fly-like twitches and tics, and begins leaving his sloughed-off human body parts in his medical cabinet, dubbing it "The Brundle Museum of Natural History". Brundle now realizes he is losing his human reasoning skills and lacks human compassion and is totally being driven by primitive impulses he cannot control.
Veronica learns that she is pregnant by Brundle and she cannot be sure if the child was conceived before or after his fateful teleportation. She visits Brundle to tell him about her pregnancy and her intention to abort their possibly mutated fetus, but she can't bring herself to do so. Brundle, who has overheard of her plans, abducts Veronica from the clinic of Dr. Brent Cheevers (a friend of Borans' who has agreed to perform the abortion), and pleads with her to carry the child to term, since it could "potentially be the last remnant of his untainted humanity." Stathis Borans breaks into the lab to rescue Veronica but is seriously injured and nearly killed by the almost fully-transformed Brundlefly as he dissolves Stathis' left hand and right foot with his corrosive "vomit-drop."
Brundle then reveals his desperate, last-ditch effort to Veronica: He will use three telepods (the third pod being the original prototype) to fuse himself, Veronica, and their unborn baby together into one entity, so they can be the "ultimate family," which Brundle then utters probably one of the poignant lines in horror/sci-fi movie history: "more human than I am alone".
Veronica resists Brundle's efforts to drag her into the first telepod. She accidentally tears away his jaw, thus, triggering his final transformation. His body completely sheds its outer layer of rotting flesh, revealing the monstrous combination of man and insect that has been growing underneath. The now-mute "Brundlefly" traps Veronica inside "Telepod 1," then steps into "Telepod 2." As the computer's timer begins to count down the "activation fusion" sequence, the wounded Borans shoots the power cables connected to Veronica's telepod, severing Telepod 1's connection to the computer and allowing Veronica to escape unharmed. Seeing this, Brundlefly desperately attempts to break out of his own telepod just as the fusion sequence occurs and is then fused with chunks of metal and other unknown components from "Telepod 2."
As the horrific Brundlefly-telepod fusion slowly crawls out of the receiving pod; it silently begs Veronica to shoot him. A devastated Veronica hesitates for a moment, and then pulls the trigger, mercifully ending the life of her gruesomely transformed lover.
THE FLY. THE MUSIC. THE OPERA.
Act I- The Teleportation
The Fly. The Opera reunites director David Cronenberg and award-winning composer Howard Shore, along with librettist, David Henry Hwang, for a unique stage adaptation of their classic 1986 horror film. A closer look at the libretto, Hwang has taken different aspects of each movie and brilliantly synthesized the two into an operatic libretto, the first of its kind. The opera opens with the title theme from the 1986 movie and then proceeds into a full two hours and forty minutes of original music by Shore. It is sung in English dialogue with supertitles on a screen above the curtain, as is a common thing to do. Usually this is done for operas sung in other languages, so I found this kind of interesting since the opera was in English.
"The New Flesh"
The opera is divided into two acts. Act I begins in a strange crime scene in a laboratory. Like the 1957 story version, it is told in flashback, this time Veronica tells the story of an experiment gone wrong. The principle characters are Seth Brundle, portrayed by Canadian Bass-Baritone, Daniel Okulitch, and reporter Veronica Quaife is portrayed by Romanian Mezzo-Soprano, Ruxandra Donose. The part of Stathis Borans is played by Heldentenor, Gary Lehman.
ABOVE: Seth, Veronica and the baboon that is literally turned inside out.
Act I takes us up to the point where Brundle has successfully transported the baboon, and later, himself, through the telepod. And "The New Flesh" has come.
Act II, Veronica continues her strange tale. We see the transformation of Seth from an eccentric yet brilliant scientist into the full-bodied "Brundlefly."
For the most part the stage version is faithful to Cronenberg's film and even repeats lines from the script. One major difference comes with the time frame of the opera, which has been shifted back to the 1950's period as in the original 1958 film. For example, the scene where Brundle arm wrestles in the bar is now a 50's diner and he wrestles with a "greaser" type character in order to win Tawny.
ACT II: The Bar Brawl
The set design by Dante Ferretti is nothing short of incredible and differs from the industrial/warehouse look of the 1986 film, though I have to agree with some of the critics when they stated the telepods looked like large refrigerators, which they kind of did! Still, that didn't make the set any less visually powerful and stunning to look at.
ABOVE: Seth in mid-mutation
ABOVE: Brundlefly almost completely transformed.
Stephan L. Dupuis, creator of The Fly make-up and creature design is also equally compelling. He has done previous work with Cronenburg in the films Scanners, Eastern Promises and A History of Violence. There is also some impressive stunt work done by Daniel Okulitch as Brundlefly when he sings a musical piece while crawling upside down across the ceiling. Not an easy thing to do for any type of singer!
(Below, various Fly creature pics)
Denise Cronenburg (David's sister) is again at the helm of Costume Designer as she has done for all of Cronenburg's films as well as others. For being a "dark" topic, there were a lot of pops of color in the costuming, which provided a great contrast against the backdrop of the dreary warehouse and shiny black and grey telepods. This was Ms. Cronenberg's first opera and she did a fine job in making the costumes in synch within the 1950's time frame. Cronenberg, as usual, orchestrates all the effects magnificently, and, in customary Cronebergian, style ups the ante with sexual content in several, steamy love scenes. It was definitely hot in the opera house!
As I expected, Howard Shore's music is so impressive it could easily stand on its own without voices. The score contained the pulsating chords and quiet, intricate melodies of past Cronenberg collaborations (Dead Ringers and M. Butterfly come to mind), while drawing on sounds and effects from the old monster movies of the 1950's. In an ingenious move, Shore uses a choir as the voice of Brundle's computer. Preternatural voices ominously repeat the data analysis and tech-talk of the telepods, thus, the pods almost become characters themselves. It was very eerie and spooky at times, especially when Brundle asked what the molecular sabotage was during his teleportation and the computer (the choir hidden off stage) sings "Musca Domestica!"
ABOVE: Howard Shore
Cronenberg is clearly having a ball with the theatrics. What the critics (and at times, the audience) didn't get was that it was deliberately tongue-in-cheek at times. There was supposed to be elements of comedy. That is Cronenberg. There are several scenes which parody opera: over the top bombastic "Wagner-esque" singing, and stage theatrics where characters burst into self-deprecating lyrics, such as when Veronica, having looked around the candy wrapper littered laboratory, sings, "What is this?" and Seth replies that he "suddenly has a thing for candy bars."
The opera continues much like the 1986 movie and ends with Veronica shooting her gruesomely transformed lover dead.
ABOVE: Placido Domingo
What can I say about Maestro Placido Domingo that hasn't already been said over the years? His musical direction was nothing short of brilliant. Only a forward thinking genius like Domingo would go out on a limb and do something this unique, knowing full well that "critics" might not see the beauty in horror/sci fi as he did. "It has long been my dream to unite the worlds of film with those of opera," said Domingo. The Fly. The Opera achieved that. It was a visual and musical success. Next time this flies into town (sorry, I couldn't resist!), all horror/sci- fi fans should go. Even if opera isn't your thing, the make-up effects, the set design, the lighting, the costumes, will have the horror/science-fiction fan transfixed.
ABOVE: Hwang, Shore and Cronenberg
ABOVE: David Cronenberg
Overall, David Cronenberg, David Hwang, et al. did a superb job in taking a short story and a movie, brilliantly breathing into it a new life; an interpretation and synthesis of horror/sci-fi movie and opera that has never been done before.
It won't be the last.
Bravissimo!
"My name is Lucy Tate aka Deathdolly and I am a Horror Drunx."
Lucy Tate
Los Angeles, California
October 1, 2008
