Last Week to Journey

I’ve been sorta swept up in class work and work work this summer, so I’ve been missing tons of cool summer events in New York.  The Lincoln Center Festival alone has been presenting lots of opera…  It’s already too late for most of it (sorry folks, hope you had other, timelier sources of NYC opera info…), but definitely some interesting stuff, so check it out if only to regret not knowing earlier…

The center pieces of the Festival, running its duration, is Monkey: Journey to the West, an acrobatic show with music by Damon Albarn (of Britpop band Blur) and animation by Jamie Hewlett (illustrator of Tankgirl & Gorillaz).  Based on a 16th century Buddhist story, it premiered in 2007 at Manchester and the duo teamed up to create that animation segment for the BBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in 2008.  This is the last week to see it.

Sleeping Betty nel Bosco

From The National Film Board of Canada, here’s a fun take on the story of Sleeping Beauty by director Claude Cloutier:

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/39056960]

SLEEPING BETTY from National Film Board of Canada on Vimeo

You can find lots of full films from throughout their history up on the NFB site (you can limit it to animation too, if you’re so inclined).

To offer an operatic counterpart, here’s the opening of Ottorino Respighi‘s 1922 opera, La Bella Dormente nel Bosco (available in full on Spotify too).

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJGEAhDqaRU&w=350&h=300]

It was actually performed in 2005 by New York’s Gotham Chamber Opera in conjunction with Lincoln Center Festival and puppets by Basil Twist, as seen below.  Both the GCO & LCF have exciting events coming up this summer, so check them out. audio

Gotham Chamber Opera production of Respighi’s La Bella Dormente, photo by Stephanie Berger