Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Fantasia

A Dream to Some… A Nightmare to Others!

Even though the solstice was on Sunday, the longest day, a lot of Europeans celebrate the height of the season tonight, St. John’s Eve. For the record, that’s when the demon Chernobog is supposed to emerge from Bald Mountain – regardless of what Disney may think. (The narrator of “Fantasia,” Deems Taylor, says it’s supposed to be Walpurgis Night, April 30, the eve of May Day.)

In England, June 23 is Midsummer’s Eve, the setting of Shakespeare’s most famous comedy. I have a soft spot for the 1935 film version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” overseen by Viennese impresario Max Reinhardt and featuring a real hodgepodge of actors from the Warner Bros. stable, including crooner (and later tough guy) Dick Powell as Lysander, Olivia de Havilland as Hermia, James Cagney as Bottom, and yes, 14-year-old Mickey Rooney as Puck.

But it’s the technical achievement that really puts it over. The opulent film (spun off from an extravagant Hollywood Bowl production) sports an effervescent score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, woven together with dewy gossamer from the compositions of Felix Mendelssohn, enthralling production design and art direction by Anton Grot, with an especially delightful sequence of fairies ascending a woodland mist encircling a tree, and poetic choreography by Branislava Nijinska. There’s so much poetry in this movie it even sustains the ridiculous antlered crown worn by magnificent Victor Jury (soon to play John Wilkerson, the unsavory overseer in “Gone with the Wind”), putting his superior elocution to impressive use as Oberon.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” has been filmed many times, of course. (I’m still trying to forget a middle-aged Stanley Tucci as Puck, riding a turtle, from the frustrating 1999 version, also starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Kevin Kline.)

One I find especially unpleasant sports perhaps the most impressive pedigree of them all – a 1968 version that stars, among others, Judy Dench, Helen Mirren, Diana Rigg, David Warner, and Ian Holm, in green body paint, as perhaps the creepiest Puck in history. Also, for “Star Wars” aficionados, one-time Annakin Skywalker (before George Lucas scrubbed him out) Sebastian Shaw as Peter Quince. To think, the film is directed by theatrical deity Peter Hall! With such an assemblage of talent, how could it miss?

Well, it *was* 1968, and there were certainly more attractive, more lucid eras. As I recall, the film is uningratiating – ugly and claustrophobic, with hand-held cameras and “Kung Fu Theater” style editing, little concern for the beauty of the language, and perhaps Holm’s only bad performance (with that damn tongue).*

I disliked it so intensely, in fact, that it’s one of those instances in which I feel surely it couldn’t be as bad as I remember. This is the most dangerous kind of bad, because there’s a good chance I will wander back to it, lured beyond my will by curiosity and fey enchantment.

I must say, at least the print at the link is in the best resolution I have ever seen. I’m used to encountering it in transfers from grainy VHS. Here it is. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Then check out the 1935 version, for the production, especially. It really is like a dream. Perhaps it won’t hit you the same way it does me, but I find it to be pure enchantment. Here’s a taste.

It’s unfortunate I couldn’t find a crisper transfer.

Americans might question why Midsummer would fall at the beginning of the season. Traditionally, in much of Europe, summer began on May Day. Under the Julian calendar, the calendar employed the Roman Empire that traveled to Anglo-Saxon England, summer began on May 9. So Midsummer is June 24.

Yeah, they got it wrong, but when in Rome…

Happy Midsummer Night!

———-

*EDIT: Okay, maybe I went too far in my savaging of the 1968 version with “little concern for the beauty of the language.” This is one cleanly-articulated text. I’ve been noticing of late how nobody these days enunciates. So the readings were actually quite refreshing. The problems (the rapid-fire delivery and disruptive editing) don’t really kick in until the fairies show up. Holm must have had a thermos of coffee and a kilo of cocaine every morning on the way to the shoot. It’s still an ugly movie, but if you just listen to the words, it’s actually quite good. And of course, you can’t dismiss it out hand with that cast!

June 23, 2026
Leopold Stokowski on “Sweetness and Light” and “The Lost Chord”

With wild hair, dove-like hands, and a faux middle-European accent (as the son of a Polish-born cabinet-maker who emigrated to and worked in London), Leopold Stokowski certainly knew how to work a crowd. But he also knew his way around a score.

He could be flamboyant in manner, controversial in his interpretations, and an easy target for parody. But he was also magnetic and, at his best, a true magician of the podium.

I hope you’ll join me today for both of my Saturday radio shows as I honor Stokowski on the anniversary of his birth. (He was born on this date in 1882). You’ll find more information at the bottom of this post.

Stokowski was a natural for the movies. He appeared in more than a dozen motion pictures and documentaries and was frequently parodied in cartoons during Hollywood’s golden age. His most enduring film has been Walt Disney’s “Fantasia,” in which he conjures flights of animated fantasy from his art deco perch, and even shakes hands with Mickey Mouse. The recordings made for the actual film pioneered multi-channel stereo.

Stokowski always did have a reputation for embracing experimental technologies to capture or even enhance the fidelity of sound. On stage and in the recording studio, he was meticulous in arranging his musicians to achieve the sonic results he desired. It was really he who established the so-called “Philadelphia sound,” with its celebrated string sonorities, which he managed to replicate to a greater or lesser extent with many of the orchestras he worked with.

The quintessential Stokowski performance often stood apart for its dramatic flair and opulence. He was often at his best in the colorful French and Russian classics, where he really knew how to make the instrumental colors pop. But he also had an insatiable curiosity and a drive to introduce new music and unusual, off-the-beaten-path works.

On the other hand, there were occasions when he could truly astonish by driving a Mozart symphony like a team of wild horses. You truly never knew what this sorcerer was going to pull out of his hat.

One should never come to a Leopold Stokowski performance with an air of complacency, even if one thinks one knows the music inside out. Equally, one should never learn a score from a Stokowski recording. The extent of his recreative powers can only be fully appreciated when listening to him once you’ve heard everyone else. (There was often a lot of creativity in his “recreativity.”)

Some of his inspirations were genius – I love when he holds the chorus at the end of his London Phase 4 recording of Ravel’s “Daphnis and Chloe” Suite No. 2 – and in case it isn’t provocative enough, he actually has the engineers thrillingly boost the sound – but even for me, his swooning additions to his 1970s recording of “Siegfried’s Funeral March” are a bridge too far. Not everything he did will delight everyone, but the guy was not afraid to take chances.

Stokowski, who trained as an organist, possessed intimate knowledge of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach. At a time when such repertoire would have been comparatively unknown to orchestra subscribers, Stoky brought Bach to the concert hall by way of his own imaginative transcriptions. Hard to believe these were considered controversial at the time.

Clearly, Stokowski was a remarkable figure for so many reasons. Among them was his astonishing longevity. At the time of his death in 1977, at the age of 95, he had signed a contract that would have kept him busy in the recording studio until he was 100. It’s astonishing that so many of his late recordings were as good as anything he had ever done.

In common with Oscar Wilde, Stoky knew there is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. His ever-evolving origin story. His wealthy marriages. His celebrity love affairs. His elegant bearing and riveting showmanship. It’s not just because of Bugs Bunny that music-lovers still revere him or toss up their hands in incredulity and gasp “LEOPOLD!”

——–

Join me on KWAX Classical Oregon for “Sweetness and Light,” Stokowski conducts music by Ottokar Novacek, Paul Dukas, Fikret Amirov, Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Claude Debussy, this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT.

Then on “The Lost Chord,” Stokowski conducts Wagner in vintage recordings featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra, this Saturday evening/afternoon at 7:00 EDT/4:00 EDT.

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

April 18, 2026
Disney’s “Fantasia” Wrong About Walpurgis Night

In Walt Disney’s “Fantasia,” the narrator, Deems Taylor, sets the film’s childhood-scarring climax on Walpurgis Night. Deems Taylor was wrong!

It’s actually tonight, St. John’s Eve, that the Slavic demon Chernobog emerges from the “Bare Mountain” (the translation preferred by Leopold Stokowski). For sure, there should be plenty of nudity on a good old-fashioned St. John’s Eve. And Disney obliges with bare-breasted harpies!

St. John’s Day holds a place on the Christian calendar akin to that of Christmas, in that it coincides, roughly (thanks to miscalculation by the Romans), with solstice time. For the pagan North, summer began on May Day. Midsummer was originally a pagan festival, which was co-opted by the Church into the observance of the birth of John the Baptist, which St. Luke implies took place six months before that of Jesus.

So while the actual summer solstice might occur anytime between June 20 and June 22, depending on the year, June 24 was designated the Feast Day of St. John.

St. John’s Eve is a time for leaping over bonfires. Doing so was believed to ensure prosperity and good luck. The bigger the fire, the further at bay were kept evil spirits. The further the evil spirits, the better the guarantee of a good harvest. If you didn’t light a bonfire… well, it was as good as tempting fate to burn your house down. It’s a time when dragons roam the earth, as the sun again pursues a southerly course. And it’s a time when witches are believed to rendezvous with powerful forces, such as Chernobog.

The idea for Modest Mussorgsky’s famous musical picture “A Night on Bald Mountain” haunted him for his entire creative life. In 1858, while still in his teens, he planned to write an opera on the subject of Nikolai Gogol’s short story, “St. John’s Eve.” A couple of years later, in 1860, he toyed with another projected opera called “The Witch.” Not long after, according to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, he wrote a diabolical piece for piano and orchestra under the influence of Franz Liszt’s “Totentanz.” If it was so, it has not survived.

It wasn’t until 1867 that Mussorgsky reconfigured the idea as an orchestral piece, “St. John’s Eve on Bald Mountain.” He began to compose it on June 12. He finished it on June 23 – ACTUALLY ON ST. JOHN’S EVE. Mussorgsky was ecstatic finally to have completed it. Then he showed it to his mentor, Mily Balakirev, who savaged it. The composer, no doubt ashamed, put it aside. This version of “A Night on Bald Mountain” would not be published until 1968.

Mussorgsky may have been cowed by Balakirev, but he was not done with his dream of a witches’ sabbath. In 1872, he revised and recast the material for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra, as part of Act III of the opera-ballet “Mlada,” a collaborative effort undertaken with his “Mighty Handful” fellows, Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Borodin, and César Cui. In this new version the music was to form the basis of the “Night on Mount Triglav” scene. Mussorgsky now referred to the piece as “Glorification of Chernobog.”

Unfortunately, the “Mlada” project foundered, and again “Bald Mountain” sank into oblivion. “Glorification of Chernobog” was never published or performed and this version is now lost.

Mussorgsky took one more crack at it, as “Dream Vision of the Peasant Lad,” designed to serve as an intermezzo in his opera “Sorochyntsi Fair,” begun in 1874. He went back to the short story “St. John’s Eve,” from Gogol’s book “Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka.” The collection, steeped in Ukrainian lore, also proved to be a fount of inspiration for Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and others. If you can find an edition coupled with Gogol’s “Mirgorod” (which includes “Taras Bulba” and “Vij”), all the better.

Alas, the opera was left incomplete when Mussorgsky drank himself to death in 1881. There are at least five performing editions of the work, completed by other hands. Sadly, Mussorgsky NEVER HEARD “A Night on Bald Mountain,” in any of its versions, in his lifetime. How’s that for a sucker punch?

I’ve got the Sorochyntsi incarnation all cued up to the relevant passage at the link. If you’re interested in hearing the rest of the opera, you can drag the audio bar back to the beginning with your cursor.

For many years, this was the standard version, edited and orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Disney is notoriously vigilant about guarding its content, but you can view the “Fantasia” segment here, the video posted for educational purposes. In the film, Mussorgsky’s music is heard in Stokowski’s orchestration.

https://www.cornel1801.com/disney/Fantasia-1940/film8.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawLGnrtleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFyZUhBelZRbVlEb2xwakp6AR6RyrHTzwvPj_8ByfsR_SY_Oml0TI5XF29OYqaXYSWYtvvOwIpKqVs2sau8HQ_aem_XkVs1_XeDcNgZzNshtoE5g

With heat index values around here projected to push 110 through Wednesday, the idea of dancing around a bonfire is not exactly at the top of my list. On the other hand, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about catching a chill on the Bare Mountain.

June 23, 2025
Chernobog St Johns Eve and Disney’s Fantasia

When the sun sets this evening, June 23, you had better be prepared to deal with Chernobog! That’s right, it’s St. John’s Eve – the eve of the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist.

On the eve of St. John’s nativity (observed), St. John’s wort, prized for its miraculous healing powers, is sought, as is the fern flower, believed by some to bring good fortune, wealth, and the ability to understand animal speech.

It’s a time for the lighting of bonfires against evil spirits, and even dragons, which roam the earth as the sun again pursues a southerly course. And it’s a time when witches are believed to rendezvous with powerful forces, such as the Slavic demon that emerges from the Bald Mountain at the climax of Disney’s “Fantasia.”

“Dracula” fans might be interested to know that none other than Bela Lugosi struck demonic poses for Disney animators for several days as a model for the film’s climactic sequence. Ultimately, he would be replaced by Wilfred Jackson. Still, how cool is that?

Leopold Stokowski conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra in his own arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky’s music on the soundtrack. Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that that’s Princeton’s Westminster Choir, as “A Night on Bald Mountain” segues into Schubert’s “Ave Maria.”

The master of ceremonies, Deems Taylor, states that the setting is Walpurgis Night (April 30). Deems Taylor is wrong! I’m not afraid to say so, since I’ve pretty much given up on ever receiving a Deems Taylor-Virgil Thomson Award for Radio Broadcast at this point, for as richly deserved as it might be.

Chernobog could care less about Walpurgis Night. He’s kickin’ it up for St. John!

Relive your childhood anxiety here. Click on “watch video clip” at the link.

http://www.cornel1801.com/disney/Fantasia-1940/film8.html

June 23, 2024
Stokowski: Genius or Madman?

It takes a thief to catch a thief, and it takes a madman to interview Leopold Stokowski. Here is Leopold, the craziest dinner guest since Andre Gregory in “My Dinner with Andre,” being interviewed by the pianist-eccentric Glenn Gould. Gould was famously summed-up by conductor George Szell as “That nut’s a genius!” Stokowski himself was always an artist who thrived at the intersection of genius and charlatan. That said, even at his whackiest, Stokowski reminds us that a broken clock is still right twice a day. When he’s at his best, I don’t care if we’re talking about clocks or sausage, the rest is merely casing.

Beethoven is not really the first composer I think of when I think about Stokowski. Stokey was often most in his element when sculpting music with more overtly coloristic effects. But here he and Gould collaborate on Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto in 1966. Unsurprisingly, for those familiar with the concerto, it’s an ear-opener, with Stokey doing his best to will the orchestra to grandeur, while Gould plays whatever the hell he feels like.

Video of 85 year-old Stokowski rehearsing Beethoven’s “Leonore Overture No. 3”

From the same sessions, rehearsing Barber’s “Adagio for Strings”

Some of my favorite Stokowski footage is in the movie “Carnegie Hall” (1947), in which he conducts a movement from Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony. Just when you think his hair can’t get any bigger, he overachieves. The director, Edgar G. Ulmer, cut his teeth in German Expressionist cinema, and it shows. In America, he directed “The Black Cat,” with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and the film noir “Detour.”

The wild hair, the dove-like hands, the faux middle-European accent (he was the son of an English-born cabinet-maker of Polish heritage), Stokowski knew how to work a crowd. He also knew his way around a score. Despite his protestations in the Beethoven rehearsal footage at the link above, Stokey was not averse to looking past whatever could be gleaned of a composer’s intentions, if it meant realizing his own glorious visions.

He could be controversial, to be sure, and he was not difficult to parody. But he was also magnetic and, at his best, a true magician. In common with Oscar Wilde, Stokey knew there is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

Happy birthday, Leopold Stokowski!

Shaking hands with Mickey Mouse in “Fantasia” (1940)

Parodied in “Long-Haired Hair” (1949)

Introduced by Burns & Allen in “The Big Broadcast of 1937”

Introduced in a snood around the 3:30 mark in “Hollywood Steps Out” (1941)

With Deanna Durbin in “One Hundred Men and a Girl” (1937)

With Marian Anderson and Princeton’s Westminster Choir

Conducting Debussy at 90

April 18, 2024

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