Exclusive: Tom Cruise movie features Vienna Philharmonic on soundtrack
mainA Hollywood first?
We are reliably informed that the soundtrack of Mission Impossible 5, which premièred yesterday at the Vienna State Opera, has the Vienna Philharmonic, chorus and soloists perform excerpts from Turandot.
About 20 minutes of the movie plays around, in and on top of the roof of the State Opera building.
Turandot is sung by Lise Lindstrom, who will play the role next season in Vienna. The tenor is Gregory Kunde.
High art meets high-wire action film.
And features over 30 British opera singers in the film itself……..performing the actual scenes.
Tell us more.
A cast of UK opera singers – and an orchestra – spent a month filming 2 scenes from Turandot (including the ubiquitous ‘Nessun dorma’) while stunts went on around us. Had they used our live voices it would have incurred extra costs. I guess it was cheaper to overdub the singers and orchestra.
The orchestra was nominally the LPO. In practice it was the usual bunch of freelancers.
The power of music finds it’s place everywhere. So Tom’s Cruise movie is not an exception. I wrote a paper about influence of music on society in history, with help of writing services and would say I was really wondered having known the details.
Evidently, “writing services” didn’t correct your misuse of the apostrophe and the convoluted meaning of your last sentence.
Thanks for the publicity, Norman!!
It’s pretty cool. Lise Lidstrom ROCKS as Turandot. You don’t see us, but you hear us.
Greg … I’ve told all down at Lyric that YOU are in TURANDOT … even though not seen. Congratulations ….and Bravo ! ….. you are still remembered here in Chicago. All best regards.
So, how long before they screen it in the musikverein? Concertgebouw has already begun screenings of “film+orchestra” events, maybe this is Vienna’s stint?
Goes in perfect alignment about the future panorama of classical music around the world: pure pops + 4-5 warhorses, and 5-10 orchestras actually playing something relatively more interesting.
Oh wait, we are there already!!
Good chance it will bump Turandot recording sales for a while (think what happened to La Wally after Diva came out, not to mention (for a time) the career of the singer Wilhelmenia Fernandez, who seemed to be everywhere for a few years).
It may even bump the viewers of the Mission Impossible 5 by one (me) when it comes out on DVD or appears on YouTube or Netflix. Something I can fast forward without the inconvenience of, you know, dressing.
It would certainly not be the Vienna Philharmonic, but the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera?
They are the same orchestra!
Nope. They are related, but not the same.
After three years in the Staatsoper Orchester the members are tenured into the Vienna Philharmonic. In rare instances the process takes more than three years. An example would be when members take leave for child care (a right in Austria of both men and women.) There are typically about ten members waiting for tenure. They often play with the Phil even though they aren’t yet officially members.
The orchestra variously argues that it is the same ensemble or not depending on how it suits it purposes — usually involving money and politics.
What a thrill to be part of this project! It was definitely the Vienna Philharmonic and we did the recording in the beautiful Musikverein with Philippe Auguin conducting. Seems Christopher McQuarrie, the film’s director, is something of an opera fan — so very cool! Maybe there will be more opera in film? Opera is, after all, the premiere cinematic art form!
Hope you had as much fun making the recording as the movie was to see. I thought it sounded like you, and yelled out during the credits when I saw.
Awesome
Justin
Another fabulous thing to make Rochester, NY proud! Bravo, Greg!
Thanks