It didn’t take long for a planning fail to become a planning win. As an American who’s lived in the UK for almost 13 years, booking trips to visit family should have been second nature, but I’d screwed up my return flight booking between Austin and Glasgow, and had no choice but to rebook entirely, […]
Author Archives: Carmen Paddock
Posted inPlaylist
A David Lynch Playlist
David Keith Lynch died on January 16, days before his 79th birthday. A polymath best remembered as the director and writer of “Blue Velvet” (1986), “Mulholland Drive” (2001), “Inland Empire” (2006), and (much of) “Twin Peaks” (1990-1991, 2017), few artists can lay claim to his idiosyncratic, inimitable comfort with discomfort in content and form. Lynch […]
Posted inReview
A Spectator to Yourself
The reality outside the virtual reality is this: a blindingly sunny pre-fall day on Glasgow’s South Side gives way to a dark, almost bare studio in Offline (formerly Glasgow Artists’ Moving Image Studios). The room is divided into two halves, each with a square, slightly soft, and pleasingly bumpy fabric covering, and a stool for […]
Posted inPlaylist
The Best Opera Scenes in Film
On film, characters go to the opera house for meetings, espionage, or murder; operas can bring about moments of revelation, connection, or catharsis. They progress the plot or add texture to the lived-in dimensions of the film’s world. But the best uses of opera in film boost something under the surface, and even add additional […]
Posted inReview
The Young Adult Self-Insert Fanfic “Magic Flute”
For those with no knowledge of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s final singspiel, the poster and cast list of Florian Sigl’s new film version of “The Magic Flute” (produced by Roland Emmerich—of “Independence Day” fame and “Moonfall” infamy) might raise some questions. For those familiar with the (incomprehensible) plot of “The Magic Flute,” featuring bird men (and […]
Posted inReview
Far Away, So Close
In this pandemic, with its necessity of physical distancing, opera—known for large-scale, human-intensive productions and larger-than-life immediacy—faces particular challenges. Many companies’ creative approaches to COVID-friendly performance have drawn on the past few decades of live broadcasts to bring their productions to house-bound, worldwide audiences. At the end of this first year, filmed opera produced during […]