Follow the Lieder is an exciting new project at this year’s Rye Arts Festival that combines classical music songs and video in much the same way as pop music and videos came together 40 years ago.
The hugely talented Alisdair Kitchen, who has directed seven operas at Rye Arts Festival over the years, has selected nine beautiful Lieder songs by the composer Schubert. Alisdair recorded the songs with professional opera singers and opera students and has then written, directed and filmed a video short to go with each of the songs.
And the nine videos are being released one a week, starting two weeks ago with Secret and then last week, The Busker. While Secret was a light, fun and heartwarming story of love in a library, The Busker was a lot darker, shot in black and white and set in a desolate underpass.
This Saturday (August 17) at midday sees the release of the third video in the series which is called, Versunken (Rapture).
Alisdair says: “Rapture is all about a chap’s obsession with his girl’s…um…curly hair… Without giving too much away about the video, I created a vintage-style shampoo commercial, and we see the reactions of a couple watching this on TV. Like the original poem which are the lyrics to the song, it’s all completely innocent while also being completely suggestive!”
This and all the films can be viewed on Rye Arts Festival’s website, on Vimeo, Facebook and also Classic FM’s Facebook page, which is a keen partner in the project, as are the Royal College of Music and the National Opera School.
To view the films go to the home page of Rye Arts Festival and click on the buttons under the Follow the Lieder headline.
To see all the films at one go (and each video is three to five minutes long) there will be a special screening at Rye Arts Festival on 15 September at 10:30am in the Kino and Alisdair will talk about the project. Tickets for this and other Festival events can be bought online at the Festival website or go into the Box Office at Phillips & Stubbs in Cinque Ports Street or ring 01797 224442
Image Credits: Rye Arts Festival .