© © Walter Vorjohann

ChaplinOperas

Live-Musik von Benedict Mason zu drei Stummfilmen von Charlie Chaplin

Who doesn’t know and love Charlie Chaplin’s wonderful silent films Easy Street, The Immigrant or The Adventurer? But here, we won’t be hearing the original Hollywood music from the 1920’s, but rather Benedict Mason’s live ChaplinOperas instead. Originally premiered in 1988 by the Ensemble Modern to mark Charlie Chaplin’s 100th birthday, the ChaplinOperas are meanwhile considered a milestone in the history of setting silent movies to new music.

»Since making experimental films about film and music, I have thought about and practised the possibilities of a new aesthetic about film and music. The three scores of the ChaplinOperas are – as it were – invisible or reverse operas with an opulent and complex subplot added by the singer (and the subtitles).« (Benedict Mason)

The films:
Easy Street (US, 1917)
The Immigrant (US, 1917)
The Adventurer (US, 1917)

Once sensed that the music follows its own context, which only occasionally, fleetingly falls into lockstep with the film, almost as if by coincidence. There is a reason that Mason himself recommends concert performances.Rhein Main Zeitung, Doris Kösterke