Opéra imaginaire

Opéra imaginaire
Produced by
  • Josef Benedek
  • Godefroid Courtmans
  • Richard Gooderick
  • Sarah Mallinson
  • Sue Mallinson
  • Tess Mallinson
  • Michel Redlich
Starring Franco Corelli
Bernard Marbaix
Ana Lucia Alves
Sébastien Chollet
Mehdi Manglunki
Rubina Owadally
Alain de Greffe
Fundji Ngelessy
James Smillie
Narrated by James Smillie
Edited by
  • Colin Green (segment "Madame Butterfly")
  • Edward Marks (segment "Le Veau d'Or")
  • Jamie McCoan (segment "Recitar!...Vesti la Giubba")
Production
company
Release dates
 1993 (1993)
Running time
 51 minutes
Country France
Language English

Opéra imaginaire (translates as "an opera for the imagination") is a 1993 French animated musical film, made for television. It has been compared to films like Fantasia[1] and Allegro Non Troppo, and consists of 12 different segments,[2] each one of which is based on different popular operas, and done in a greater variety of animation styles than what Fantasia had done. It was nominated for best production at the CableACE Awards in 1994.

Segments

  1. Recitar!...Vesti la Giubba, extract from Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, sung by Franco Corelli and directed by Ken Lidster. A stop motion animation of the opera's plot with a dark comedy theme and the characters rendered as circus-style clowns. A "happier" ending is shown with the 2D-animated ghost of Nedda reconciling with a rather obese Canio after he had "accidentally" killed her.
  2. La Donna è Mobile, extract from Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, sung by Nicolai Gedda and directed by Monique Renault. In the crimson heart of the wine in his glass, the (live-acted) Duke of Mantua from the opera embarks on a 2D fantasy which he sees hand-drawn animated women based on those who come from famous paintings by French painters.
  3. Carmen, extract from Georges Bizet's Carmen, sung by Les Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois and directed by Pascal Roulin and Christophe Vallaux. Carmen (again live-acted) lays down her tarot cards which through CGI spring to life with the images the cards each depicting one of her choices from the opera.
  4. Voi che Sapete, extract from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, sung by Susanne Danco and directed by Pascal Roulin. A tribute to Cherubino's cross-dressing adventures, rendered through paper cut-out style animation against CGI backgrounds.
  5. Madame Butterfly extract from Giacomo Puccini's Madame Butterfly, sung by Felicia Weathers and directed by Jonathan Hills. The story of Cio-Cio-San's tragedy is rendered through animation in the style of traditional Japanese watercolors.
  6. Pêcheurs de Perles, extract from Georges Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles, sung by Nicolai Gedda and Ernest Blanc and directed by Jimmy T. Murakami. A wispy, black-and-white, rotoscoped animation depicting a condensed version of the plot to its most famous aria.
  7. Bald prangt, den Morgen zu verkünden...Du also bist mein Bräutigam, extract from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Magic Flute, sung by Lucia Popp and directed by Raimund Krumme. A 2D CGI animated, geometrical version of the scene of Pamina's attempt at suicide and its prevention, with all the characters' bodies rendered in geometrical shapes on an ever shifting stage.
  8. Cendrillon, extract from Gioacchino Rossini's La Cenerentola, sextet with the Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, directed by Stephen Palmer. A sunny take on the opera and the fairy tale through hand-drawn animation with the characters randomly turning into each other, as well as characters from other fairy tales, including Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Three Little Pigs.
  9. Le Veau d'Or, extract from Charles Gounod's Faust, sung by Nicolai Ghiaurov and directed by Hilary Audus. A hand-drawn, sketchy rendition of the ill-fated romance between Faust and Marguerite as the booming voice of Mephistopheles, who manipulates them like puppets, sings throughout the segment.
  10. Noi Siamo Zingarelle, extract from Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata, sung by the Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia of Rome and directed by Guionne Leroy. An unrelated version of the opera with crudely claymation blobs of food attempting to bring color to a white world.
  11. Lakmé, extract from Léo Delibes's Lakmé, sung by Mady Mesplé and Danielle Millet and directed by Pascal Roulin. A rendition of the plot in which Lakmé's arms and hands, through CGI, turn into various flora and fauna of the Indian jungles, including a tree, a cobra, a deer, a bird, a leopard, a woman's arm with bracelets, a rock, a human, a boat, a clump of reeds, and others.
  12. E Lucevan le Stelle extract from Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, sung by Carlo Bergonzi and directed by José Abel. An eerie hand-drawn animation depicting Cavaradossi's final hours of life observed by the angel of death.

Cast


References

  1. ↑ "Opéra imaginaire". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  2. ↑ "Opéra Imaginaire" (in French). Planete-jeunesse.com. Retrieved 25 June 2014.

External links

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