Welsh National Opera stages Berg’s Lulu, screens Pandora's Box starring Louise Brooks

Welsh writer and Louise Brooks fan Dilwyn Roberts-Young has let me know that the Welsh National Opera will be staging Alban Berg’s 1937 opera Lulu, as well as screening the 1929 silent film  Pandora's Box with live musical accompaniment on February 20th. The opera and screening of Blwch Pandora (the Welsh title of Pandora's Box) are part of the Welsh National Opera season devoted to "Free Spirits." Here is what their website has to say:

"Free Spirits is the first of our themed seasons. It brings together two of the greatest operas of the 20th century, Janáček’s The Cunning little Vixen and Berg’s Lulu. Both pieces pose profound questions about how much freedom we desire and how much we can tolerate and still remain a functioning society.

She is a vision of freedom too pure to be allowed to last. Everyone is drawn to Lulu, intoxicated by her; those in her thrall are like moths to a flame. Her flame burns bright and fast but sooner or later it will be extinguished by the very things it once fed upon.

Berg’s second and final opera is a masterpiece – total theatre. Anyone wishing to see the greatest works in the repertoire must include Lulu in their list. Few composers invite their audiences unflinchingly to confront humanity’s darkest regions in the way that Berg does here. Lulu promises a shattering but rewarding experience for those who encounter it.

Welsh National Opera has an important association with this great composer’s work: WNO gave the first British performances of Lulu in the 1970s and won acclaim and awards for our 2005 production of Wozzeck. David Pountney is one of the world’s most influential opera directors. This production of Lulu is his first new production in his role as our Chief Executive and Artistic Director."

The cast includes:
Lulu - Marie Arnet / Countess Geschwitz - Natascha Petrinsky / Wardrobe Mistress/Schoolboy - Patricia Orr / Doctor Schön/Jack the Ripper - Ashley Holland / Alwa - Peter Hoare / Artist/Negro - Mark le Brocq / Schigolch - Richard Angas / Prince/Manservant/Marquis - Alan Oke / Athlete / Acrobat - Julian Close

Conductor - Lothar Koenigs / Director - David Pountney / Set Designer - Johan Engels / Costume Designer - Marie Jeanne Lecca / Lighting Designer - Mark Jonathan

Lulu is a co-production with the National Theatre in Prague. The running time is approximately 3 hours 30 minutes including two intervals. The opera will be sung in German with surtitles in English (and Welsh in Cardiff and Llandudno). Download the 2012/2013 season brochure by clicking here. It contains an image of Louise Brooks, and links the actress to the character of Lulu.

Gayle Forman's New Novel, Just One Day, has a Character Named Lulu

Gayle Forman's new novel, Just One Day (Dutton Juvenile), has been getting a lot of attention lately. It's a teen romance described as a journey toward self-discovery and true love. 

"When sheltered American good girl Allyson Lulu Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines."

MTV's Hollywood Crush website calls Just One Day "Part romance, part travelogue, part coming-of-age tale" and notes that  Lulu is the name Willem bestows upon Allyson thanks to her likeness to Louise Brooks.Similarly, the New York Times noted "He calls her Lulu, the nickname of the silent film actress Louise Brooks, and neither asks her real name nor discloses much about himself." 

I haven't read the book, but would be curious to hear from anyone who has if there are any other allusions or references to Louise Brooks. For more on the actress and her influence on 20th century literature, see my Huffington Post article, "Louise Brooks - Cover Girl and Secret Muse of the 20th Century."

More about Gayle Forman can be found on her website at www.gayleforman.com/.

Pandora's Box screens in Buffalo, New York TONIGHT

Don't forget: Pandora's Box (1929) will be shown tonight in Buffalo, New York. 

The G.W. Pabst film, which stars Louise Brooks as Lulu, begins the 2013 film series sponsored by the Buffalo Film Seminars at the University of Buffalo. 

The announcement of the screening was originally made in the UB Reporter, the campus newspaper. More information can be found by following these links.

Pandora's Box has been shown in Buffalo as part of the Buffalo Film Seminars twice before, in the Fall of 2001 and the Spring of 2007. Read the earlier BFS film notes by clicking on the links.

Silent films were everywhere

Silent films were shown everywhere in the 1920s.... Witness this Chinese newspaper which carries an advertisement for Clara Bow's 1928 film, Red Hair, on the left hand page. On the right hand page are advertisements for other films showing at theaters named Embassy, Apollo, Orient, etc....

Red Hair does not survive, except in fragments. Here is a clip of those fragments - in color. She certainly had it!

Pandora's Box shows Jan 15 in Buffalo, New York

Don't forget: Pandora's Box will be shown in Buffalo, New York on January 15, 2013. The film, which stars Louise Brooks, begins the 2013 film series sponsored by the Buffalo Film Seminars at the University of Buffalo. The announcement of the screening was made in the UB Reporter, the campus newspaper.

The Buffalo Film Seminars take place Tuesday nights at 7 p.m. at the Market Arcade Film and Arts Center in downtown Buffalo, the only eight-screen publicly-owned film theater in the United States. Each week Diane Christian and Bruce Jackson introduce a film: the film is screened, and after a brief break, there is an open discussion with students and anyone else who cares to join in.

Tickets for the seminars are adults $9, students $7, seniors $6.50. Season tickets are available any time at a 15% reduction for the cost of the remaining films. Free parking is available in the M&T fenced lot opposite the theatre's Washington Street entrance: pay the attendant $3, give the parking ticket to the clerk in the theatre, and get the $3 back.

Handouts with production details, anecdotes and critical comments about each week's film on goldenrod paper are available in the Market Arcade lobby 45 minutes before each session. The Goldenrod handouts are posted online one day before the screening. (All previous handouts are also online.) The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the Market Arcade Film and Arts Center and the University at Buffalo. Here is a brief excerpt from the film.

Pandora's Box has also been shown in Buffalo as part of the Buffalo Film Seminars in Fall of 2001 and the Spring of 2007. Read the earlier film notes by clicking on the links.

Frank Wedekind's Lulu staged in 1930

I found this hard to resist. It is an article, seemingly program notes, about a 1930 stage production at the Lobe Theater of Frank Wedekind's Lulu. The Lobe Theater was in what was Breslau, Germany but is now Wroclaw, Poland. At the time, according to Wikipedia, Breslau was a "known as a stronghold of left wing liberalism" - which is interesting because director G.W. Pabst was also known to be left-leaning liberal, and this play was staged about a year after Pabst directed Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box. The woman depicted in the woodcut sitting on a man's head would be the character of Lulu. Doesn't she seem to have a certain Brooksian flair?

Poland anticipates Prix de Beaute

Here is a 1929 clipping from a Polish newspaper listing films in production or scheduled for release in the near future - a kind-of "something to look forward to" piece. The 1930 Louise Brooks film, Prix de Beaute, is listed a couple of entries above Charlie Chaplin's City Lights.

A number of Louise Brooks' films were shown in Poland. I have newspaper advertisements for Pandora's Box, A Girl in Every Port, It's the Old Army Game and Beggars of Life clipped from Warsaw and Krakow newspapers.