Sunday, May 6, 2018

City Lights: music wonderful, image disappointing

First a story: when we were living in Toronto and I was in grad school, the symphony in town was presenting Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights" with live music. I love this film and really wanted to go but we were living hand-to-mouth and $50 per ticket was a huge amount of money. With tremendous regret, we did not but tickets or attend.
I've wanted to see it with live music ever since.
Last night the Regina Symphony played the live score to "City Lights" at the Centre of the Arts. With a bit of trepidation (but no delay) I got us tickets. The last film we'd seen with the RSO had a screen that was sadly small. The RSO staff thought that the screen was larger this time but it ends up that it wasn't. The music was tremendous and was played flawlessly to the film. We'd not brought opera glasses so I often had to squint to see details in the film. The kept quite a bit of light on so that the orchestra could see and so that the audience could watch the orchestra. The film played behind the musicians and was likely less than 20 feet wide. I'd go again, but I'll be angry every time this happens. 

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