"FILM-OPERA" IN BERLIN

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 129, 3 June 1922, Page 10

"FILM-OPERA" IN BERLIN

PICTURES AND LIVING VOICES.

What is claimed to be the first real <" film opera " will be produced iv Berlin shortly, says the Berlin correspondent of a London paper, and arrangements have already been made to take it subsequently to England. It is not, as might be supposed, a fresh attempt to combine the cinematograph with the gramophone, but a work in which the action on the screen will be accompanied., by the singing :o£ actual living voices, in faultless synchronisation. This perfect simultaneity is the main novelty of what the "film opera " hopes to present. In previous attempts to attain similar effects it has been found , impossible to avoid the awkward contretemps of • the voices being Beard wh»n the mouths of ( £he singers on the screen were shut—and vice versa. V ■ The device for procuring this synchronisation, which was demonstrated to a party of foreign journalists at the ateliers of the Notofilm ■ Company, is ingenious, but simple. As, the pictures are teing taken a portion of the musical score, written large on a continuous band, •moves across the bottom, of the field of ..the len3, "and is .'pKotographed at the same time, as the dramatic action. It reappears on the screen, forming- the lower margin of the film, and serves as a guide to the conductor. A supplementary, device gives him control over the speed at which the film ie taken. In this way the rapidity of the 'action is dependent on the music, and not the other, way about.

There is,.a difficulty Jin adapting existing operas to the cinematograph which has not beei^ surmounted. Films^ must be shown with accelerated action! and opera written for the stage could not, therefore, be given with, cinematographic help without complete alteration of the character of the music. Consequently, if there is to bo "film opera "j at all, it must have its own music, written^with a view to the manner of it presentation. This is what has been done in the present case, for the score of " Beyond-the Stream," as the work is called, has been specially written by the well-known composer, Professor Hummel. When the .film is taken, the music is played by a piano at a reduced ■ tempo to allow for the acceleration on the screen, while a conductor sits between thes core band and tha camera, keeping »'the movements of both exactly adjusted to the time of the instrument. When the film is shown the process is reversed. The conductor then reads the dominant components of the-score from the strip at the bottom , of the film, the speed of movement qf which controls the tempo,' and in this way he is able—with a little practice, of eourse-^to bring about an exact synchronisation of action and music. , ( . At its first performance here the film opera " will be given with a full setting of seven solo voices and a chorus, .but this, gf course, will be out of the question for ordinary usage. Indeed, it would be purposeleas to have the " film opera " at all if it did not provide something approximating to real'opera with a very considerable economy ;on personnel. Consequently, the solos have been arranged in such a way that, in case of need, they can be redistributed among .four Voices, which would also sing the " Choruses," while the accompaniment can be' supplied by anything from an unaided piano up to a full orchestra.

In its present stage, the. thing looks like little more than an interesting and curious experiment, though' fragmentary trial pieces which have been put on with apparatus still in its probationary stage Uk- .r° h™ been very successful both in this country and abroad.