A movie with a Wagner theme. Not the story of the composer's life. British director Tony Palmer took that on over a decade ago with mixed results. (How can a film on such a flawed, complicated genius be anything other than flawed and complicated?)
No, I want to adapt a big, funny love story about a bass-baritone who longs to sing the great role of Wotan, and find true love in the process. Forgive the Hollywood logline but I've been practising those all week and that's the best I can do. I had a script, I had a one page synopsis but the biggest hurdle turned out to be reducing a 480 page novel that had become a 120 page script and gone on to be a two paragraph synopsis into less than 25 words.
And I'm doing it with that nagging sense that anyone who looks at this will snigger - Wagner? Opera? Not a hope in hell. I like to respond that "Amadeus" took on Mozart and Salieri (who?) and swept the Oscars. Or that a movie about a band of geriatric musicians in Cuba packed them in across the planet.
But Wagner? Oh my, the associations are so toxic. My bass-baritone, Leo, knows that. So do the musicians he works with. In the original novel, he says to his new love, Rose: "I think it would have been very difficult to have been a singer when he was alive, to know that he was such an obnoxious man and yet to want to be part of that extraordinary music. It's easier now that he is dust." So "now that he is dust," I want to pitch my "wildly romantic, acerbically funny" (said the book blurb) story to movie producers.
I know that with its mix of big romance and daffy English eccentrics, I'm putting a foot in Merchant-Ivory country (think "Howards End" or "Room with a View".) And with the "ordinary woman meets world's greatest singer", I'm on "Notting Hill" territory.
I've got snow, I've got great love and I've got that glorious final scene of Die Walkure when Wotan bids farewell to Brunnhilde. I believe that if that theme weaves in and out of the story, people who fear Wagner as "heavy", "difficult" etc will discover the ecstasy that this music induces in people. National Review editor, Jay Nordlinger, called that passage the greatest piece of music ever written.
I recall a Covent Garden Ring with Haitink conducting in the Gotz Friedrich production. James Morris sang Wotan. There's a passage just after "freier als ich der gott," where the music leads us into a rapture that does not quite relate to the dramatic action or lyrics. But by then we don't care. On that day (it was a general rehearsal) I walked out the Royal Opera House not quite sure that my feet were anywhere near the ground. I wasn't alone. A couple of flute players from the orchestra wanted to go for a drink but both said they needed to be pulled off the ceiling before they could make it to the pub.Next thing I knew it was 3 hours later and I was in the coffee shop at the Royal Festival Hall - with no real idea how I got there. Wagner will do that. It scares some people because he reaches down and unleashes very deep emotions.
And that's what I want to put into my story but by making my protagonist a wise compassionate man, perhaps I can move Wagner away from a lot of the ugliness that has surrounded him.
Still, pitching this movie is not going to be easy. So when an email dropped into my inbox from Virtual Pitch Fest last week suggesting that I "pitch in my pyjamas" I couldn't resist. For a small fee, with the low dollar, I can pitch a dozen producers, agents and managers in Hollywood -all from the comfort of wherever my laptop has landed. I don't own pyjamas but I donned my red fleece dressing gown, my free towelling slippers from some hotel or the other, poured a glass of wine and here, looking out on the daffodils in Ealing, West London, began pitching. It's 5 am in Los Angeles. I suppose some hyper-active loony is headed for the gym but in theory, the 'Coast' is still deep in slumber. We'll see what they have to say.
3 comments:
By Val De Beer "Val De Beer" - See all my reviews
I was so delighted to find "The Singing House" on amazon.co.uk, for two reasons:
1) Because when my much-loved, much read copy falls apart as it must eventually do, because it's been handled so much by me, I know that there will be another copy for me to buy,
2)Because it is such a pleasure to review this book and to imagine the sheer pleasure when someone reads it for the first time.
You don't have to know about opera in order to enjoy the book, because when the singing referred to in the book is described, it is dealt with so lovingly and sensitively that you are caught up in the joy of the moment.
When Leo dalla Vigna, the great bass singer is in an aeroplane at the height of a storm, he begins to sing - listen to these words: " His voice surged up through his chest and head, pushing out doubt, fear and Das Ende.As always, his voice, the air from within him, wove him into harmony with the whirling air in the world outside....his voice had also filled the cabin and wrapped itself like a muffler around the fear and desperation of the other passengers."
Oh that is so beautiful!!!
It is the story of Rose, who falls in love with Leo, who lives with his stunningly beautiful wife in their loveless marriage and its tragic secret, on the shores of Lake Como.
She travels with a pair of middle-aged twins all over Europe and it is the account of her experiences and of the experiences of Leo and the people who form an integral part of his life, that form the basis of this stunning book.
Janette Griffiths' ability to conjure up images of the atmosphere is uncanny:
"The great winds of the autumn gave way to the great snows of winter. What started as a light sleet that wan December morning in London, spread and rippled and thinly coated France, then folded back upon itself and covered the whole continent...Slow, heavy and deliberate, it fell without ceasing, muffling the rooftops of the great singing houses of Northern Italy, Germany and Austria."
With excitement, we follow Rose as she discovers Leo's secret and remembers his words "I now know that whenever I go out onto a stage to sing, that I sing for you."
She joins the ranks of women who have fallen in love with the "bellissima voce" of opera singers and with the singer as well, but will this be enough to base her life on, this troubled man with the tragic story?
I wish that I were about to read this book for the first time, however, having written this review now, I am inspired to read it yet again for its wonderful narrative and its spectacular imagery.
Don't deny yourself the pleasure of a magnificent story, read it!
So did the virtual pitchfest come through for you?
And.. what happened?
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