The Minnesota Orchestra launches a three-week Sounds of Cinema Festival with two screenings of Charlie Chaplin’s 1931 film City Lights—ranked as the 11th-best American movie by the American Film Institute—as the Orchestra performs Chaplin’s full score live, on January 17 and 18. Music Director Osmo Vänskä conducts both performances.
The screenings and performances take place at Orchestra Hall on Thursday, January 17, at 11 a.m., and Friday, January 18, at 8 p.m., with ticket prices ranging from $21 to $83.
City Lights (1931): Chaplin’s timeless classic
Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed, produced and starred in the 1931 film City Lights—and created the orchestral score with the aid of arranger Arthur Johnston. The film, one of many to feature Chaplin’s Little Tramp character, follows the Tramp as he falls in love with a blind flower seller (Virginia Cherrill) and seeks funds for an operation to restore her vision, leading to an ending film critic Roger Ebert calls “one of the great emotional moments in the movies.”
City Lights was Chaplin’s first film score; he composed music for many of his subsequent films as well as for re-issued versions of his previous movies. Chaplin, who had no formal musical training, wrote the film’s music by singing melodies to arranger Arthur Johnston, who then orchestrated the score. Composer José Padilla contributed one theme: “La Violetera” (Flower Girl).
City Lights is primarily a silent film; its only sounds are the score, sound effects and a few lines of unintelligible dialogue. Nearly all new films contained spoken dialogue by the time City Lights was released in 1931, making it one of the last movies of the silent film era.
Pre-concert performances
The January 17 concert is preceded by screenings of two brief silent comedy films—Big Business (1929), starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and the animated short Felix Gets Broadcasted (1923)—starting at 10 a.m., both featuring live music performed by pianist Tom Erickson. Before the January 18 performance, the St. Paul Central High School Orchestra performs a concert at 6:30 p.m.
Upcoming Sound of Cinema Festival concerts
The Orchestra’s three-week Sounds of Cinema Festival includes a full screening of another landmark silent film, The Battleship Potemkin (1925), with a score compiled from Shostakovich works performed live by the Orchestra (January 26), as well as a program focusing on Hollywood’s golden era of the 1930s through ’60s (January 19), and concerts of film music from the past 30 years (January 24 and 25). The festival’s final program, To Boldly Go..., features Star Trek actor George Takei as host, and music from science fiction classics such as the Star Wars and Star Trek series (February 1 and 2).
“The works presented in this film music festival are really the cream of the crop,” says Associate Concertmaster Roger Frisch, who will perform solos from soundtracks by John Williams and John Corigliano at the January 24 and 25 concerts. -- www.minnesotaorchestra.org
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