A world premiere from Chicago? Wonders never cease
OrchestrasCritic Jennifer Wood attended Riccardo Muti’s festival rollout of Osvaldo Golijov’s long-delayed new work.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra returned this weekend to Symphony Center where Music Director Emeritus for Life Riccardo Muti presented a commissioned world premiere from the 2024 film Megalopolis.
Frances Ford Coppola, Muti’s 2nd cousin (pictured), attended both nights for the world premiere of Megalopolis Suite. To match a post-modern setting with ancient Rome, the composer created a Roman Tone Poem with themes from the film. Ripping brass, hammered chimes and timpani glissandi are reminiscent of the glories of Ben Hur then dive into the strings for an amorphous love theme, evoking the fictional “Megalon” from the film, resolving into jazz harmonies like foggy memories of past generations. Doubling the melody with tenor sax, English horn, oboe and clarinet, the timbre transforms over time, echoing Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.
The second movement opens with muted strings sneaking in for the movement’s name, Death Kiss Utopia. The piece moves from surprise attack into a wondrous development. A cacophonous ‘boom-chick’ turns into rich, unpredictable harmonies in the brass, recalling the opening love theme. Strings break out a Shostakovich run and the piece concludes with full symphonic fanfare and chimes solo. Muti welcomed Golijov to the stage, thanked Mr. Coppola and said, ‘It is a great film.’
Jennifer Wood/slippedisc.com
Bordda should invite Muti to conduct the NY Phil premiere in the Megalopolis itself.
“Death Kiss Utopia”: dedicated to Teodor?
We should remember Carmine Coppola (1910-91) who shared Nino Rota’s Oscar for ‘The Godfather Part II’ and went on to score ‘Apocalypse Now’ with his director son. He also composed a score for the revival of Abel Gance’s ‘Napoleon’ at Radio City Music Hall in 1981. (What most people will remember, however, is the outstanding score by Carl Davis.)
Anyone else get the feeling that this was GPT-generated?
“Ripping brass, hammered chimes and timpani glissandi are reminiscent of the glories of Ben Hur then dive into the strings for an amorphous love theme, evoking the fictional “Megalon” from the film, resolving into jazz harmonies like foggy memories of past generations. Doubling the melody with tenor sax, English horn, oboe and clarinet, the timbre transforms over time, echoing Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.”
As numerous GPT-generated slop websites on the internet attests, GPT loves creating paragraphs where multiple sentences in a row are split by a comma, and the second clause makes some comparison. It’s getting hard to trust that text came from a human even when an author is specified.
Or it came via a human….
Ticket sales for the two Chicago concerts were an embarrassment. Not as bad as ticket sales for the movie itself though.
In a spontaneous burst of startled objectivity, MacMillan on the Chicago Sun Times wrote: “The result is big, lush and, of course, decidedly cinematic music, but the problem is that there is little that is particularly original or especially fresh about any of it. Instead, the suite just sounds like a pastiche, well-crafted in many ways, but a pastiche nonetheless. Golijov’s own voice is oddly missing. […]
The other problem is that the four-movement suite runs about 18 minutes, and it often sounds like Golijov tried to pack too much into the limited space that he had, with sections and segues that come off as unwieldy […]”
The movie is widely regarded as a messy disaster. But from the point of view of Muti, there can surely be a lot to admire about Coppola and its movie.
Here are some interesting observations from the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/may/14/has-this-guy-ever-made-a-movie-before-francis-ford-coppola-40-year-battle-megalopolis
“Several sources also felt that Coppola could be “old school” in his behaviour around women. He allegedly pulled women to sit on his lap, for example. And during one bacchanalian nightclub scene being shot for the film, witnesses say, Coppola came on to the set and tried to kiss some of the topless and scantily clad female extras. He apparently claimed he was “trying to get them in the mood”.
““He would often show up in the mornings before these big sequences and because no plan had been put in place, and because he wouldn’t allow his collaborators to put a plan in place, he would often just sit in his trailer for hours on end, wouldn’t talk to anybody, was often smoking marijuana … And hours and hours would go by without anything being filmed. And the crew and the cast would all stand around and wait. And then he’d come out and whip up something that didn’t make sense, and that didn’t follow anything anybody had spoken about or anything that was on the page, and we’d all just go along with it, trying to make the best out of it. But pretty much every day, we’d just walk away shaking our heads wondering what we’d just spent the last 12 hours doing.” As a third crew member puts it: “This sounds crazy to say, but there were times when we were all standing around going: ‘Has this guy ever made a movie before?’”
“After a private screening in Los Angeles last month, one executive described it as “batshit crazy”. Another told reporters: “There is just no way to position this movie.” A third said: “It’s so not good, and it was so sad watching it … This is not how Coppola should end his directing career.”
your hate for Muti automatically extends to anyone remotely connected with Muti, included the film maker of the film to which the score was composed that Muti conducted
I suppose if Muti conducts the Rite of Spring, you’ll slam the Nijinski by pulling up the 1913 Paris newspaper review of the choreographer’s behavior on stage…
The concerts were 90-95% full. I attended both. The only thing embarrassing here is you sewer pest
Attended both? Why would you do that to yourself.
Yes, all thanks to our British Guardian newspaper. At least you get it all in plain English, not something clouded in middle class twoddle.
A relative of mine attended the concert and I reviewed the program book, which indicated that the composer took music from the film score to form a symphonic piece. Probably so it can be played more than a mere film score. Coppola got a standing ovation. Program also points out that Muti is a second cousin of Coppola.
Just now listening to the first track on the Megalopolis soundtrack. Very Ben Hur…
Yes, all sounds as if we’ve been there before. Nothing new, and Americans in Chicago rave about it!
“Muti welcomed Golijov to the stage, thanked Mr. Coppola and said, ‘It is a great film.’”
I think the critics would disagree, but I also have to pretend to be impressed with my relatives’ work.
Nobody should get too excited, as usual there was nothing innovative from the CSO, even in the context of a “world premiere”. This organization artistic vision is as a stale as a corpse. The Chicago Tribune wrote: “Golijov also does musically what ‘Megalopolis’ does visually and narratively: filch references left and right. That’s not new for the former CSO composer-in-residence whose penchant for brazen quotation has previously courted accusations of plagiarism” and “… even when citing his sources, Golijov skates on thin ice with ‘Megalopolis’. The film’s theme is more of less a variation on ‘Ben Hur’ own fanfare theme – and it, like the source material, also opens the suite and is strung throughout as a leitmotif. (Goljiov does not even change the key.) It’s not the bold choice most would make if already tailed by accusations of indiscreet borrowing”.
This was the only CSO commission this year. They blew it on this nonsense. This was another pitiful Muti pet project done just because Muti wanted it. He thought associating himself to Coppola’s movie, like he did with the Godfather’ soundtrack that he recorded, was a way to get publicity since nobody is talking about him anymore. As to Muti, he claimed Megalopolis is a ‘great film’. But according to the Chicago Tribune, Muti also told reporters he intentionally avoided seeing Megalopolis because he didn’t want it to influence his interpretation of the suite. Go figure.
How does one filch a reference?
Yeah, lotsa Tenor Sax in the Rite!
Riccardo, Film Critic, and just as benighted as usual
Everyone is talking about Ben Hur but Ben changed Hur pronoun and wants to be known as Ben They.
Please make a note of that.
Hahahahahahaha! So funny!