(Lon Chaney)² + Alloy Orchestra = a FANTASTIC evening!
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 4:24 pm
Amid several accidents and construction delays that stretched a normally 4-hour journey to 6 hours, I drove up to the Cleveland Cinemateque on Sunday to hear the Alloy Orchestra accompany two Lon Chaney classics, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and HE WHO GETS SLAPPED.
I was worn out from the drive and asking directions at least half-a-dozen times, and feared I might nod off during PHANTOM. But once my eyes and ears adjusted in the darkened auditorium, I knew there was no chance of that. Hearing the Alloy Orchestra play live is a very different thing from hearing them on a DVD. They filled the auditorium with sound, the music for PHANTOM making it seem as dark and cavernous as the cellars of the Paris Opera House. The story has been told too many times for me to recount it here, but the Alloys freshened it by giving the Phantom an eerie, otherworldly "voice," making the divas sing, and the final pursuit of the Phantom through the streets of Paris was rousing.
I have seen THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in many venues over the decades -- first on TV, several theatrical screenings, on VHS and DVD -- but Sunday's setting by the Alloy Orchestra topped them all.
HE WHO GETS SLAPPED has never been one of my favorite Lon Chaney films -- it always seemed too self-consciously arty to move me, the symbolism is a little heavy-handed, and the version TCM has always showed had a crappy needledrop score that never really fit. But the Alloy Orchestra was able to "get under the skin" of this difficult film and bring out the emotion to the point where you almost hear the thoughts of Chaney as Paul Beaumont, the scientist who loses his work and his wife to an evil baron, later finding fame as the circus clown named HE Who Gets Slapped. The Alloy's circus music was joyous and tawdry, giving real atmosphere to this difficult film. Even "The Clown That Spins The Ball" (analogous to "the hand that rocks the cradle" in INTOLERANCE) had a distinctive voice.
I know the Alloy Orchestra has its detractors here and elsewhere, but the scores for these two pictures might change their minds. They are more musical and less percussive than other Alloy scores, even though they had a full arsenal of percussion Sunday night. In addition to drums and cymbals, they had three different-sized gongs, big and tiny chimes, several horseshoes, a bell, and what looked like a shock absorber spring. Prior to this evening, it was a little hard for me to believe that the Alloy was only a three-man ensemble, but there they all were on the stage (to the left of the screen), playing a multiplicity of instruments and percussion. Terry Donahue even demonstrated the musical saw to a few of us after the performance!
It's a rare ensemble that can make you step back and re-evaluate what you've seen on the screen for years, and I would personally like to thank the members of the Alloy -- Ken Winokur, Terry Donahue, and Roger Miller -- for a truly memorable evening.
I was worn out from the drive and asking directions at least half-a-dozen times, and feared I might nod off during PHANTOM. But once my eyes and ears adjusted in the darkened auditorium, I knew there was no chance of that. Hearing the Alloy Orchestra play live is a very different thing from hearing them on a DVD. They filled the auditorium with sound, the music for PHANTOM making it seem as dark and cavernous as the cellars of the Paris Opera House. The story has been told too many times for me to recount it here, but the Alloys freshened it by giving the Phantom an eerie, otherworldly "voice," making the divas sing, and the final pursuit of the Phantom through the streets of Paris was rousing.
I have seen THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in many venues over the decades -- first on TV, several theatrical screenings, on VHS and DVD -- but Sunday's setting by the Alloy Orchestra topped them all.
HE WHO GETS SLAPPED has never been one of my favorite Lon Chaney films -- it always seemed too self-consciously arty to move me, the symbolism is a little heavy-handed, and the version TCM has always showed had a crappy needledrop score that never really fit. But the Alloy Orchestra was able to "get under the skin" of this difficult film and bring out the emotion to the point where you almost hear the thoughts of Chaney as Paul Beaumont, the scientist who loses his work and his wife to an evil baron, later finding fame as the circus clown named HE Who Gets Slapped. The Alloy's circus music was joyous and tawdry, giving real atmosphere to this difficult film. Even "The Clown That Spins The Ball" (analogous to "the hand that rocks the cradle" in INTOLERANCE) had a distinctive voice.
I know the Alloy Orchestra has its detractors here and elsewhere, but the scores for these two pictures might change their minds. They are more musical and less percussive than other Alloy scores, even though they had a full arsenal of percussion Sunday night. In addition to drums and cymbals, they had three different-sized gongs, big and tiny chimes, several horseshoes, a bell, and what looked like a shock absorber spring. Prior to this evening, it was a little hard for me to believe that the Alloy was only a three-man ensemble, but there they all were on the stage (to the left of the screen), playing a multiplicity of instruments and percussion. Terry Donahue even demonstrated the musical saw to a few of us after the performance!
It's a rare ensemble that can make you step back and re-evaluate what you've seen on the screen for years, and I would personally like to thank the members of the Alloy -- Ken Winokur, Terry Donahue, and Roger Miller -- for a truly memorable evening.