Work of the Week - Paul Dessau: The Magic Clock
On February 27th, the Anhaltisches Theater Deassau in cooperation with the Puppet Theater Magdeburg presents “Figura et Anima,” featuring two films by Polish-French pioneer Ladislas Starevich with scores by Paul Dessau written in 1928. This presentation will open the Kurt Weill Fest Dessau 2009, which runs from February 27th to March 8th, 2009 in Dessau , Austria
The Magic Clock, the first of Starevich’s films in this program, is a farcical story about a watchmaker named Bombastus, who is working on a magic clock containing miniature mechanical creatures. These creatures emerge from their clock at midnight and capture Bombastus’ granddaughter, Yolande. She quickly falls in love with a tiny electrically-powered knight, though he has already promised his heart to a mechanical princess.
In The Enchanted Forest, whose plot seamlessly continues from the first film, the robots find themselves pitched in battle. To end the violence, Yolande sets all the clocks forward, freezing the fantasy world and putting her in a prolonged sleep, wherein she dreams of an enchanted forest with mythical creatures.
Ladislas Starevich created these films with a combination of elements from animation and live-action movies, developing groundbreaking techniques and visual cinematic effects. In the same way, the plot combines components of fiction and expressionism. Paul Dessau also combined lyrics and the bold, period-specific Klangfarben to not only create a surreal cinematic experience, but also create new aesthetic possibilities between the two media.
The “Figura et Anima” program also contains a performance of Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins (with text by Bertolt Brecht) in a staging for puppet-theater, directed by Frank A. Engel and performed by the Magdeburg Puppet Theatre. “Figura et Anima” is sponsored by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, and will be performed on February 27th, March 13th, and March 14th.
- Paul Dessau - Profile
- Kurt Weill Fest Dessau 2009
- "Film Music in Concert" - Discover More Exciting Film Scores
- Genre: Film Music
(02/22/2009)
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