I’ve watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train at least six or seven times, including when it recently aired on Reel 13. With its tight screenplay adapted from the book by Patricia Highsmith (author of the Tom Ripley books), fabulously evil villain played by Robert Walker, pivotal train scenes and tense back-and-forth between Farley Granger’s Forest Hills tennis match and Walker’s evidence-planting trip to the scene of a murder, the film has always been one of my Hitchcock favorites.
Of course, music plays a huge part in Strangers on a Train, as it does in all Hitchcock movies. Many individual Hitchcock films have been studied for their music—particularly the films scored by Bernard Herrmann, who wrote the most famous film-music cue, the shower scene in Psycho—but Jack Sullivan’s detailed guide to music in Hitchcock films, which comes out in paperback on May 20, appears to be the most comprehensive. The book, Hitchcock’s Music, covers all the Hitchcock films, from the early silents to the British films like The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes and the best-known films like Rebecca, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho. The book, which won a 2007 ASCAP Deems Taylor Best Book of the Year award in the concert music category, is so detailed that you may feel the need to go watch numerous scenes again, just to listen to the music cues you somehow missed.
Recently I spoke to Jack Sullivan about Alfred Hitchcock’s film music, how the director’s carefully plotted approach to making movies extended to its music, and the post-Hitchcock era of film scoring.
Jennifer Melick: How far back does your interest in Hitchcock’s movies go?
Jack Sullivan: Back to my childhood. I was just old enough to probably sneak out and see Vertigo. Then right after that I saw North by Northwest and Psycho. As a kid, I remember being riveted by the music. read more
Composer David Lang, one of the co-founders of New York’s Bang on a Can, has been a prolific presence on the city’s contemporary music scene for more than twenty years. But even he admits that it came as something of a surprise when he was announced as the recipient of this year’s Pulitzer Prize in Music for his work The Little Match Girl Passion (click here to hear the work on Carnegie Hall’s website), a heartbreakingly humble “opera” scored for just four voices and percussion. Lang sat down for an chat about the inception of the Hans Christian Andersen-inspired piece shortly after the Pulitzer announcement.
Download the interview as a podcast here, or listen to it as streaming audio after the jump. read more
The opera stage is filled with tragic characters who have lost touch with reality—one of the best-known examples being Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, seen in Mary Zimmermann’s new Met production earlier this season with the high-flying soprano Natalie Dessay.
But, as Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez tells it in his new book The Soloist, out from Putnam on April 17, real-life tragedies with mental illness at their center are playing out on our streets every day, and some of them involve musicians. Lopez literally stumbled on a story one day three years ago: a middle-aged, schizophrenic homeless man playing a violin in Pershing Square, who clearly had had some serious musical training in a former life.
The story of this man, Nathaniel Ayers—who once attended Juilliard—was originally the subject of a series of newspaper columns. Readers began donating musical instruments, and Lopez became more and more involved in trying to get Ayers off the streets and into treatment. The book is now being made into a movie for release later this year, directed by Joe Wright (Atonement) and starring Jamie Foxx as Ayers and Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez. read more
Shu-Ying Li describes herself modestly as just “a Chinese girl trying to be a Japanese girl.”
This week, she is at the end of a run of six performances at New York City Opera in the title role of Madama Butterfly, perhaps the most famous Japanese character in all of opera. If you look at Shu-Ying’s schedule for the past few years, you will see that Cio-Cio-San has become her calling card; she sings it everywhere from Hawaii, Texas, and Oregon to Hong Kong, Connecticut, and Japan. Fortunately, she says that more than anything else she loves singing Puccini.
The soprano, a native of Shandong, China, studied at Shanghai Conservatory and then lived and studied in New York for seven years; she now makes Shanghai her home when she is not on the road. When in New York, she studies with Ruth Falcon, one of the city’s most prominent voice teachers, and she has coached the role with one of its most famous interpreters: Renata Scotto.
In part 2 of the interview, Shu-Ying talks to Jennifer Melick about her favorite singers, what it’s like being halfway around the world from home, the opera business in China, and what it’s like singing Cio-Cio-San in Japan.
Jennifer Melick: So you lived in New York for seven years, but you have moved back to Shanghai. What is it like for you when you come to New York now?
Shu-Ying Li: Back when I lived here, I subletted an apartment. This time around I am staying with a friend who has an apartment in the Bronx, which is great. There is a piano where I can practice.
Jennifer Melick: Your English is excellent. Where did you learn to speak so well?
Shu-Ying Li: From the people everywhere when I travel; from television; and from magazines. At first I didn’t understand, but gradually I began to learn. For that first performance in Budapest, in rehearsal, I had a translator. I do get lost sometimes, but I try to follow as much as I can. I went to Italy a couple of times just to study. Because language is so important for me as an opera singer, I have to be able to understand. My English is poor, perhaps, but I can communicate! I wish I could study more. Or have more time to, but there is never enough time to study as much as you want. read more
Shu-Ying Li modestly describes herself as just “a Chinese girl trying to be a Japanese girl.”
This week, she wraps up a run of six performances at the New York City Opera in the title role of Madama Butterfly, perhaps the most famous Japanese character in all of opera. Over the past few years, Cio-Cio San has become Shu-Ying Li’s calling card; she sings it everywhere from Hawaii, Texas, and Oregon to Hong Kong, Connecticut, and Japan. Fortunately, she says she never gets tired of singing it.
The soprano, a native of Shandong, China, studied at Shanghai Conservatory and then lived and studied in New York for seven years. These days, she lives in Shanghai when she is not on the road performing. When in New York, she studies with Ruth Falcon, one of the city’s most prominent voice teachers, and she has coached the role of Cio-Cio San with one of its most famous interpreters: Renata Scotto.
Last Thursday, over lunch at Rosa Mexicana restaurant (right across the street from the New York City Opera stage door), Shu-Ying talked to Jennifer Melick about how she got her start, what she loves about Mark Lamos’ current production at City Opera, how she used to play hooky in kindergarten, what she does to look like and act like a realistic Japanese teenager, and roles she plans to sing in the future.
Jennifer Melick: What was your first professional opera role?
Shu-Ying Li: My first professional role was after I won second prize in the Budapest International Voice Competition. I was hired to sing two performances in La Bohème at the Budapest Opera. Musetta—not Mimì. I only knew Chinese at the time! I did not speak any other language. But I performed the whole opera. I had a translator to help during rehearsals, at least. I could watch the people, see what the director was telling me to do, and the music just moved me around. It is such a great memory for me. At that time, I thought, “Wow, that is the world I am looking for!” All I wanted, more than anything else, was to be an opera singer. Those were the performances that got me started. I made my American debut in New York in March 1999 when I came to sing at a Metropolitan Museum concert called Asian Voices. A gentleman who supports many aspiring Asian opera singers sponsored the concert. So he changed my life—he brought me from Shanghai to New York. There were fifteen singers in this one concert! They came from Japan, Korea, and China. read more
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