World Premiere: Remembrance of Things Past (Rock Opera)

11/19/2011

World Premiere: Remembrance of Things Past (Rock Opera)

A few years ago, my old band Saturnine wrote and recorded an opera called REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST loosely based on the Proust work of the same name. I realize most translations now use IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME, which is technically closer to the French A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU but I've always preferred the poetry of REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, so I decided to stick with it.
There are two roles in the opera, Marcel, sung by yours truly, and Albertine, sung by Frances Gibson of the Australian band the Cannanes (which if you don't know them are one of the greatest rock bands of all time: even Kurt Cobain said so in his diaries). The plan from the start was to stage the piece, but the project never got off the ground. We were happy enough just to have a recorded version, which took several years to write/record, and required sending tracks back and forth to Frances in Australia and the sound engineer Matt Barnhart in Texas, where we recorded the basic tracks. The other band members were Mike Donofrio (bass), Jim Harwood (drums), and John Pisani (keyboards). John also engineered some overdubs from his apartment in the Bronx.
Recently I had the idea to make a video version of the opera, and was lucky enough to enlist Bennett Madison and Sheila McClear to play Marcel and Albertine in the piece. (Which again, if you're not familiar with Bennett and Sheila, they are both amazing writers and I recommend their books highly.) We shot the video in three locations on November 12, 2011: 1) the Hudson River in Washington Heights, down under the George Washington Bridge, 2) the Trinity Church Cemetery in Harlem on 154th Street and Amsterdam, and 3) our house, which is also in south Washington Heights. There's also some footage from midtown I took on Monday, November 14, 2011.
I didn't embed the video here because I've had trouble embedding anything on this blog, but you can watch the two acts of the opera where they are posted on Vimeo:

Act One: Marcel and Albertine meet, fall in love, and agree to move to the city.

Act Two: Marcel and Albertine in the city.

Check it out and be mesmerized by Bennett and Sheila as the star-crossed lovers.

A few acknowledgements beyond everyone I've mentioned above: I want to thank Stephen, who from start to finish served as opera genius, emotional hand-holder, and technical wizard; Jennifer Baron, the Saturnine guitarist whose aesthetic imprint I like to think is all over this video (also, check out her awesome new band the Garment District; and of course the spirit of Marcel Proust, whose work I believe stands above all for the proposition that art and beauty is our best religion and god, and help us to redeem ourselves by making life seem less accidental and -- at least as we look back on it -- more meaningful.

Posted at 12:04 PM in Expression, Science Projects | Permalink

Comments

Really lovely, Matthew. Your voice always surprises me with its youth and subtlety.

Posted by: Robtpatrick.wordpress.com | 11/20/2011 at 01:41 AM

Thanks, RP!

Posted by: Matthew Gallaway | 11/20/2011 at 10:43 AM

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Music: Death Culture at Sea and Saturnine

Listen or download songs and records from my indie-rock past with Saturnine here and Death Culture at Sea here.

Music Video: Remembrance of Things Past

Watch the rock opera Remembrance of Things Past written and performed by Saturnine and Frances Gibson, starring Bennett Madison and Sheila McClear.

Video: The Chaos Detective

The Chaos Detective is a series about a man searching for 'identity' as he completes assignments from a mysterious organization. Watch the first episode (five parts) on YouTube.

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Matthew Gallaway

Expression//Reaction//ScienceProjects

11/19/2011