On George Frideric Handel’s birthday, check out these H. Paul Moon films documenting four of the composer’s operas tailored for outdoor performance in New York community gardens by Opera Essentia. The company’s artistic director, countertenor Jeffrey Mandelbaum, manages to get each of them down to about an hour. The operas are rarely-heard. The abridgments are tasteful. The productions are no-budget, bare-bones, and beautiful. I posted about “The Queen’s Heart,” the distillation of “Radamisto,” early in January. Hear all four here:
https://zenviolence.com/handel
Happy birthday, Handel!
Tag: Zen Violence Films
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Whitman’s Cinema & Music Bicentennial Celebration
I am proud to have documentarian H. Paul Moon of Zen Violence Films as a follower of this page. Paul has been working very hard to get ready for the Walt Whitman bicentennial. Here is his definitive analysis of every appearance by Whitman in cinema and television.
This video essay is part of a trilogy of Moon’s short films about Whitman that will be screened at Rhizome DC, located in the Takoma neighborhood of Washington, on May 31, the actual anniversary of Whitman’s birth.
Watch it in preparation for tomorrow night’s broadcast of “The Lost Chord,” the last in a four-part series celebrating Whitman in music. Of the literally hundreds of musical responses inspired by Whitman’s verse, I’ve been able to touch on only ten composers. But what variety! Tune in this week for two openhearted and ecstatic works for chorus and orchestra by Howard Hanson and Lowell Liebermann. “Joy, Shipmate, Joy” will air this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network.
And if you just can’t get enough of Whitman, Rachel Katz will also focus on “the Good, Gray Poet” on “A Tempo,” as she speaks with Malcolm J. Merriweather, music director of The Dessoff Choirs. The group will present three world premieres of Whitman settings, again on the actual anniversary of his birth, as part of a Whitman Bicentennial Festival. The concert will take place at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew in New York City on May 31. “A Tempo” can be heard on WWFM The Classical Network Saturday evening (tonight) at 7:00 EDT.
If you miss the Whitman broadcasts, both will be archived at the WWFM website sometime next week, as have been past installments of “The Lost Chord” series. You’ll find them at wwfm.org. Click on “About Us,” then “Our Programs A-Z,” and then the individual shows, which are listed alphabetically. (“The Lost Chord” appears under the letter T.)
Or if you have the time and the patience to scroll through everything, simply click on “Classical” and then “Webcasts.”
Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find!
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