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Toronto-born film director David Cronenberg once described his most famous movie The Fly as being “very operatic.” Almost 14 years after making that observation, he's getting the opportunity to test its validity by agreeing to direct a new opera based on the 1986 science-fiction horror film, featuring a score by long-time collaborator and fellow Torontonian Howard Shore.
The opera production of The Fly was announced yesterday in Paris by Placido Domingo, the general director of Los Angeles Opera, and Jean-Luc Choplin, head of Paris's Théâtre de Châtelet.
Both companies will mount the work in their respective cities in 2008, with Paris getting the world premiere on July 1, followed by a run in Los Angeles starting Sept. 7. Mr. Domingo, a famous opera performer in his own right, will conduct the orchestra in both cities.
Mr. Cronenberg, 63, and Mr. Shore, 60, a three-time Oscar winner for his work on The Lord of the Rings trilogy, had wanted their first operatic foray to have its international launch in their hometown, courtesy of the Canadian Opera Company.
But COC general director Richard Bradshaw said in an interview yesterday that after discussions with the duo in the fall of 2005, he begged off the project and told them: “Go to Domingo.”
“Basically, I said, ‘Sounds terrific' – Howard showed me some of the music for the idea of what he wanted to do – ‘but the only thing is, guys, is that I'm not even in your league for commissioning fees.'
David Cronenberg and I have talked for a bit about doing something,” Mr. Bradshaw noted, “but the main thing is, I said, ‘Go to L.A.; go to Domingo.' Which they did.”
The Fly may yet have its Canadian premiere in Toronto. No dates have been set and discussions with Los Angeles are only preliminary – but “if this all comes off , we'd be looking at doing it in the opera house [the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, which opened in spring 2006] in July-August of 2009 as a popular opera,” Mr. Bradshaw said. “We'd run it like a musical with eight performances a week, with our own ensemble.”
Casting for the Los Angeles-Paris project is still to be done, of course. But Mr. Bradshaw said it's likely to be “spectacular,” and predicted superstars such as soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Rodney Gilfry, or their ilk, would get the call.
Mr. Cronenberg was finishing his latest movie, Eastern Promises with Naomi Watts and Viggo Mortensen, in London yesterday and was not available for comment.
But it's clear from previous conversations that he's long been bugged by The Fly's operatic potential, as has Mr. Shore, who wrote the music for the film as well as the soundtracks for virtually every other Cronenberg movie, including A History of Violence (2005) and Dead Ringers (1988) .
“You could actually write an opera based on The Fly,” Mr. Cronenberg told an interviewer in 1993. “It could be a sort of a one-set thing, very inexpensive...”
But according to Mr. Domingo, the Paris and Los Angeles productions will have their sets designed by Dante Ferretti, who has won at least four Academy Awards for art direction, including the 2004 Oscar for his work on Martin Scorsese's The Aviator.
Still, the opera will be something of a family affair for Mr. Cronenberg. Besides Mr. Shore, the director will be working with his sister Denise Cronenberg, who has been the costume designer for many of his films, including The Fly. Moreover, the libretto is coming from David Henry Hwang, the playwright with whom Mr. Cronenberg collaborated on his 1993 film M. Butterfly.
In a prepared statement released yesterday, the director said getting to do The Fly in a musical context represents “a magical reliving of a part of my life, this time playing a completely different role in the creation of a very different animal. I can't wait to see what happens.”
Speaking at the media conference in Paris, Mr. Shore described The Fly as “a classic opera story.” Its tale of an ambitious, brilliant research scientist (played in the Cronenberg film by Jeff Goldblum) who strenuously tests the love of his life (Geena Davis) after he inadvertently – and horrifically – splices his DNA with that of a common fly, “is one of... true love surviving in the face of physical decay and ultimate sacrifice,” he said.
Yet as old as its themes of transfiguration and suffering may be, “it's a completely new work,” he stressed.
Mr. Bradshaw said the composer “sent me a quite a lot of stuff which was very impressive.”
