Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Sing Faster: The Stagehands' Ring Cycle

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Produced by
  
Richard Berge

Edited by
  
Jay Boekelheide

Director
  
Production company
  
ITVS

6.8/10
IMDb

Directed by
  
Jon H. Else

Music by
  
Initial release
  
22 January 1999

Music director
  
Cast
  
Ken "Spike" Kirkland

Sing Faster: The Stagehands' Ring Cycle wwwgstaticcomtvthumbdvdboxart66274p66274d

Starring
  
Kenneth 'Spike' Kirkland

Productioncompany
  
Independent Television Service

Awards
  
News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational or Cultural Programming - Programs

Similar
  
Based on operas, Documentaries

Sing Faster: The Stagehands' Ring Cycle is a 1999 documentary film directed by Jon H. Else, and distributed by the American Public Broadcast Service as part of its Independent Lens series. The film documents the work – and leisure activities – of a crew of stagehands (members of IATSE Local #16) at the San Francisco Opera, as they prepare and rehearse for a production of Richard Wagner's complete Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring Cycle). The cycle, a set of four operas with a combined run-time of seventeen hours, is regarded as the most ambitious production an opera company could mount.

Contents

Synopsis

The film documents preparations for the production at one month prior to opening night, two weeks prior, and on opening night itself. Stagehands rehearse cues for lighting, fog, and the choreographed movement of large set pieces, some requiring twenty people to position – including a two-ton, smoke-belching, articulated dragon head. During scenes, the stagehands relax by playing cards, watching television, and knitting, occasionally wishing for the cast to "sing faster" so that they can go ahead with their work between scenes. Throughout the film, principal stagehand Ken "Spike" Kirkland provides a synopsis of the operas, with his own commentary. In the film's finale, a sixty-second time lapse sequence shows the full opening night performance.

Production

The majority of the film was shot on a single 16mm camera, using Fuji 500 ASA film, in a 4:3 aspect ratio. The time-lapse shots were recorded with an Arriflex camera mounted to a rail of the theater balcony. Music from the stage production itself was paired with the footage of the stagehands' work. Though the footage was shot in 1990, the film was not completed until 1998.

Release

The film was released on January 22, 1999 at the Sundance Film Festival. It was later broadcast as part of the first season of the PBS series Independent Lens on September 27, 1999.

Reception

At the Sundance Film Festival, it received the Filmmaker’s Trophy. In 2000, the film won an Emmy "for outstanding informational or cultural programming".

Reviewer Allan Ulrich, writing for The San Francisco Examiner, declared that "one could scarcely imagine a more energizing or enlightening introduction to Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen than Jon Else's 60-minute documentary". Oxford University Press called the film "as much fun for opera-haters as for opera-lovers".

References

Sing Faster: The Stagehands' Ring Cycle Wikipedia


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