Friday, August 05, 2011

Jean Sibelius: Pelléas and Mélisande conducted by Dalia Stasevska with a movie directed by Lauri Danska and Elina Oikari

Jean Sibelius: Pelléas et Mélisande. FI 1905. Orchestral music to Maurice Maeterlinck's play. 26 min
- At the Castle Gate
- Mélisande
- At the Seashore
- A Spring in the Park
- The Three Blind Sisters
- Pastorale
- Mélisande at the Spinning Wheel
- Entr'acte
- The Death of Mélisande

Pelléas et Mélisande. FI 2011. PC: ELO / Aalto-yliopisto. D: Lauri Danska, Elina Oikari. Loc: Belgrad, Berlin (old, deserted NATO base), St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Tampere, and Reitkalli Village in Hamina. A silent movie directed to the composition by Jean Sibelius. Blu-ray projection. 26 min

vl: Silja Fontana, Anna Vähälä, Sara Etelävuori, Sofia Greus, Salla Savolainen, Ingrid Lindblom
vla: Olga Reskalenko, Barbora Hilpo
vc: Jaani Helander, Oona Rosenlund
cb: Hannes Biermann
fl: Malla Vivolin
Ob: Saku Mattila
cl: Taavi Oramo, Markus Kaarto
fg: Asko Padinki, Noora Kärnä
cor: Henriikka Teerikangas, Aino Koskela
perc: Samuli Viitanen

Movie premiere at Kamarikesä (Chamber Summer Festival), Ritarisali (Palace of Nobility), Helsinki, 5 Aug 2011.

The first part of the concert evening "For Love". The second part:
Johannes Brahms: Two Songs for mezzosoprano, viola, and piano
Jeni Packalen, mezzosoprano
Dalia Stasevska, viola
Kirill Kozlovsky, piano
...
Sergei Rachmaninov: Sonata for cello and piano
Samuli Peltonen, cello
Kirill Kozlovsky, piano

A wonderful musical evening at the Chamber Summer Festival. The young film directors Lauri Danska and Elina Oikari have created a new silent movie to Jean Sibelius's Pélleas et Mélisande, originally stage music to Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play about doomed love, a royal triangle drama between Mélisande and the two brothers Pélleas and Golaud. Lauri Danska and Elina Oikari's film is stark and poetic, refusing to illustrate, instead adding new webs of associations. Todays' screening was the premiere. The movie concert deserves to tour.

After the concert there was a huge vintage car exhibition at the Market Square. Proud owners put their treasures on display, from 1910s T-Model Fords to the astounding 1960s Cadillacs, Chevrolets, and Mustangs.

The nights are getting darker. The Suomenlinna lighthouse-churchtower keeps sending its life-saving rays. In the Merisatama the benji jumpers are almost caught in the crescent of the Moon.

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