All film, music and vintage lovers — this one's for you. On February 8, The Orpheum in Vancouver served as a venue for a new twist on a classic: an entwining of Rupert Julian's 1925 silent film, The Phantom of the Opera, and the Vancouver Bach Choir's orchestra ensemble. This is the second time this performance has taken place, repeated after a fantastic reception for the inaugural performance in 2013.
The work is led by Andrew Downing. A Toronto-based award-winning composer, double bass player, cellist and educator, he is also playing in the presentation. An innovator, Downing has preserved the original film, but accompanied it with an incredible score that perhaps enhances it. The performance includes instruments — trombone, keyboards, clarinet and violin — and over 100 voices singing in the foreground with the screening of the 1925 film in the background.
“What Andrew's done is he's created music that goes with this silent film ... and so he's created new life into these old films,” said Jeremy Berkman, musician and sessional lecturer at the UBC School of Music who plays the trombone in the concert.
Other silent films Downing has created musical scores for include The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Impossible Voyage (1904) as well as The Shock (1923).
This new work gives viewers a chance to experience the same universal feelings that the original film intended for audience members to sense, except that this time those feelings will be heightened by the powerful, live music played in the foreground.
“The Phantom of the Opera is about a longing, we all feel longing. It's about mistreatment, we all feel mistreatment. There's nothing old, there's nothing new. What the music does is it helps amplify all those universal feelings that the film is representing,” said Berkman.
Berkman seems to view the venue as completely fitting. First opened in 1927, The Orpheum now seats just under 3,000 people and is regarded as one of the most beautiful concert halls in North America.
“This is a grand theatre. This is how people viewed movies and so, in a way, they could have seen this film in the 1930s or the 1920s in The Orpheum — in this setting,” he said.
He spoke about how he felt that past events and conversations are still echoing through the walls of ancient buildings and are somehow still there — The Orpheum is no exception.
This performance is sure to please both young and old. It is a creative endeavor to revive an old tale and enhance it using the power of music, giving audience members the opportunity to view it from a different outlook. For fans of the original, this is a chance for them to experience it like never before and for first-timers, it's time they are introduced to its legacy in a contemporary method. As Berkman puts it, “It's a way to be in the past and be in the present.”