In addition to his upcoming film projects, Shore is writing an opera based on David Cronenberg's film The Fly, to be directed by Cronenberg and staged for the 2007-2008 season of the Los Angeles Opera.
Personally I have better things to do than watch a tenor covered in viscous fly make-up singing about "insect politics"!
First, a Lord of the Rings "symphony", now this.
What's next I wonder?
Eddie Izard in Mrs. Doubtfire: The Musical?
Last edited by Paul MacLean on Mon Jan 08, 2007 12:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
HAHAHA! That is the funniest thing I've read in weeks.
I guess the RINGS and all the awards gives Shore a forum to write whatever he wants. But this sounds like a gag from a Zucker Bros. movie or SOUTH PARK episode.
However, I promise there will be articles on the "intellectual density" of Shore's music regardless of how insane the whole idea is.
My casting: Josh Groban as the scientist, who is then replaced by Pavorotti once he mutates into slug form!
LOL...I love Howard Shore and his music, but this opera or whatever it is is a stretch.....even for me. Maybe they shoudl do an opera of NAKED LUNCH while they're at it...great double bill...
Nelson Muntz on NAKED LUNCH: "I can think of two things that are wrong with that title...."
and if you are honest, there are some operas with far less exciting stories... it's about the music in the end and Shore's THE FLY was a pretty nice score, will be interesting to see whether he uses some of that. This project has been around quite some time, so it's not like he lost his mind now....
mrsbrody wrote:>>
However, I promise there will be articles on the "intellectual density" of Shore's music regardless of how insane the whole idea is.<<
That chip on your shoulder for Howard Shore's work seems to get bigger every year Andy. Happy 2007!
Mrs.B it would be impossible for that to happen since I've never been a Shore fan
I'm not a Shore fan either. There are obviously many composers I love. And there are some composers to whom I am indifferent.
Then there are composers whose work I actively dislike and wish would quit the business because they are detriments to the art. Howard Shore is one of these.
I still don't get the hype over his Lord of the Rings scores. My only assumption is that the great affection people have for the films colors their opinion of Shore's music. As Basil Poledouris once said "Music never sounds as good as it does on a really good movie."
If Shore is such a genius, how come no one ever gave two hoots about any of his scores prior to LOTR? He had been scoring films for a good 20 years previous to these films, and I've been acquianted with many film music fans since the late-80s. I never met a Howard Shore fan before December of 2001. Then he does LOTR and suddenly he's Rozsa, Herrmann, Williams, Barry and Goldsmith all rolled into one.
And tellingly, no one's really been impressed by anything he's written since LOTR either.
Actually, I'm a big fan of his and have been so since THE FLY and DEAD RINGERS. What got me into his work was his scoring for Cronenberg films- his music is so dense and depressing that they fit those Cronenberg films well. I also like his scores for BIG and LOOKING FOR RICHARD, SE7EN and PANIC ROOM. I think the LOTR scores are really well done and some of the best film score music I've heard (outside of Williams or Newman) in recent memory. Post-LOTR I really liked A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and listen to it quite a bit. I collected a bunch of his scores so my collection is pretty complete. That being said, I am not as excited for an opera based on THE FLY. But who knows? It might be good.
I think the following scenes and their arias would be true camp classics:
1) The maggot birth scene
2) The medicine cabinet inventory scene
3) The maiming of the ex-boyfriend
and ultimately: 4) The execution finale.
Don't know about you, but I smell Tonys!
JDvDHeise
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."-Gene Wilder to Cleavon Little in BLAZING SADDLES
Actually, Paul, I don't know what revisionist world you're living in but plenty of people loved Shore before LOTR. Royal Brown (who you don't like) was perhaps the most well known and respected film music critic prior to FSM, and he raved about Shore's work for years before Lord of the Rings. So did Lukas Kendall actually, but maybe somehow he doesn't count as a film music fan or maybe you've never met him. You honestly believe that there were no fans of the Cronenberg-Shore collaboration prior to LOTR, which is incidentally what got him the job on LOTR in the first place? For some excellent post-LOTR work that you seem all too happy to dismiss, there's the Aviator and History of Violence and Sun: Soul of the Ultimate Nation. You might notice that the composers who fans do talk about such as Goldsmith and Horner and Williams and Poledouris and Elfman are all famous amongst nerds because they've done big fantasy scores and action adventure scores. Up until LOTR, Shore was known for his moody Cronenberg work and serial killer movies and comedies like Big and Mrs Doubtfire, and he STILL managed to create a strong fan base with those scores. Maybe the reason you hate Shore is that you're sour over the fact the George (yawn) Fenton's and Trevor (double yawn and uses ghost-writers) Jones's careers never took off.
MrsB there's no need to get snide just because you don't care for others' opinions.
Fact about LOTR is that Shore was far from their first choice. They wanted Horner and he wanted too much money. They went for Kilar (the BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA guy) and eventually settled on Shore for monetary and other reasons. Thus, you can't say his hiring was a slam dunk or thereabouts because they were such fans of his.
As far as the ghost writers and Trevor Jones goes that's a ridiculously old rumor that floated around the FSM inner-circle -- I believe around the same time that I also heard Thomas Pasatieri wrote all of James Horner and Thomas Newman's scores and Shirley Walker wrote all of Danny Elfman's scores as well. Which, basically, speaks for the validity of that statement.
You're calling me snide after Maclean says Shore had no fans before LOTR and that people who do like his LOTR are brainwashed because they like the movie? Why don't you guys go over to intrada.com and tell Doug Fake that he doesn't really like Howard Shore's music? I'd like to see him eat you for breakfast. And gosh, since they couldn't get Horner or Kilar, they must have thrown up their hands and pulled Shore's name out of a hat.
As for Trevor Jones, re: Ghostwriting, Shirley Walker once told me off the record that she ghost-wrote the entire climactic basement cue for Arachnophobia and she was very upset when Jones didn't give her cue sheet credit as promised. She told this story often, I'm surpised she didn't tell Paul. Looks like the inner circle was right! I really do hope Jones signs on for Dark Crystal 2 so you can hear what the first one would have sounded like without Peter Knight "orchestrating."
I think the following scenes and their arias would be true camp classics: