Paul Moravec and I aren’t so busy prepping for the world premiere of Danse Russe that we’ve forgotten about our first opera. The New School is putting on an arts festival called Noir, and The Letter is very much a part of it.
Quoth the press release:
The theme of our first arts festival is Noir, a cinematic style of shadowy expressiveness that had its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. Coined by a French critic in 1946, the term film noir refers to movies depicting a morally ambiguous world of cynical private eyes, lonely gangsters, and femme fatales. Since then, the influence of noir has been felt in areas ranging from fashion design to fine art, graphic art to fiction, suggesting the alienation and disorientation of modernism through stark silhouettes, sexual frankness, stylized emotion, and the absence of sentimentality. Join The New School community in an exploration of noir in a festival of iconic films, hard-boiled storytelling, graphic art, and illustration inspired by this uniquely 20th century style.
That’s right up our alley, The Letter being what Paul has called an “opera noir,” and so we’re taking part in the festival, which will also feature appearances and presentations by such interesting folk as Mary Gaitskill, Molly Haskell, Todd Haynes, Ben Katchor, Greil Marcus, Frances McDormand, and Luc Sante.
For our part, Paul and I will be presenting and discussing excerpts–both live and on video–from The Letter at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 7. Our joint appearance will take place in the New School’s Arnhold Hall, which is at 55 W. 13th St. in Manhattan.
Admission to this and other festival events is free, but seating is limited and you must make an advance reservation to get in. To do so, or for more information about the festival, go here.