Olga Neuwirth's 'Lost Highway'

Synopsis

“Which is better — the movie, or the book it’s based on?”

On today’s date in 2003, at its premiere in Graz, Austria, a new multi-media opera asked a different question: “Which is better — the opera, or the movie it’s based on?”

The new opera, Lost Highway, is by Olga Neuwirth, an Austrian composer, and was inspired by a 1997 movie by American film director David Lynch.

Like David Lynch’s film noir, Olga Neuwirth’s opera, which combines live action and music with videos and electronic tape, is dark, often baffling, and more than a little creepy – perfect for a Halloween premiere, in fact. Neuwirth herself had this to say:

“I wanted the stage to be aseptic and empty … I had to conceive music and video (the two forms of art which deal with time) simultaneously so that I would be able to match the famous film with a new arrangement of sound and image ... The singers and actors have to move through this terrible sense of space, namely, the sense of being nowhere, in a non-space, the non-real, the non-palpable … a terrifying and, at the same time, fascinating vortex between dream and reality.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Olga Neuwirth (b. 1968): Intro from Lost Highway; Klanform Wien; Johannes Kalitzke, conductor; Kairos CD-0012542KAI

On This Day

Births

• 1833 - Russian composer Alexander Borodin, in St. Petersburg (Gregorian date: Nov. 12)

• 1806 - American composer Louise Talma, in Arcachon, France

• 1949 - Cuban-American composer and conductor Odaline de la Martinez, in Matanzas, Cuba

Deaths

• 1870 - Hungarian composer Mihály Mosonyi (Michael Brand), 55, in Pest

Premieres

• 1724 - Handel: opera Tamerlano in London at the King’s Theater in the Haymarket (Gregorian date: Nov. 11). This was the London debut of the Italian tenor Francesco Borosini in a work by Handel.

• 1865 - Brahms: Theme and Variations (after slow movement of Brahms’ String Sextet No. 1), in Frankfurt am Main

• 1866 - Offenbach: operetta, La Vie Parisienne, in Paris, at the Palais-Royal

• 1875 - Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 4, in Paris at a concert conducted by Edouard Colonne, with the composer as soloist

• 1891 - Mascagni: opera L’amico Fritz, at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome

• 1924 - Hindemith: Kammermusik No. 2, in Frankfurt, with Clemens Kraus conducting and Emma Lübbecke-Job the piano soloist

• 1932 - Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 5, by the Berlin Philharmonic, Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting, with the composer as soloist

• 1947 - Chávez: Toccata for percussion, in Mexico City

• 1949 - Mark Blitzstein: opera Regina, in New York City

• 1955 - Hovhaness: Symphony No. 2 (Mysterious Mountain), by the Houston Symphony, Leopold Stokowski conducting

• 1966 - Stravinsky: The Owl and the Pussycat (dedicated to Vera Stravinsky), in Los Angeles; This was Stravinsky's last composition

• 1970 - Crumb: Ancient Voices of Children, in Washington, D.C.

• 1985 - Rorem: String Symphony, by the Atlanta Symphony, Robert Shaw conducting

Others

• 1739 - Handel completes his Concerto Grosso No. 12 in London (see Julian date: Oct. 20)

• 1933 - Arnold Schoenberg, accompanied by his wife, baby daughter, and family pet terrier, Witz, arrives in New York on the liner Isle de France

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