The idea of filming the Newport Music Festival occurred at the 80th birthday party of my good friend, Newport resident Roger Englander, five time Emmy winning producer/director of the premier classical music television program of the 60’s and 70s, the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts with Leonard Bernstein.
The surprise party was held at the Sanford-Covell Villa Marina Inn owned and operated by Anne Cuvelier. Among those in attendance were Roger’s good friend Mark Malkovich, III, general manager of the Newport Music Festival.
At that time I had been transitioning away from my primary interest, producing Classical music CDs for my company, Newport Classic. All CD sales had been dropping and I had started to film live opera and classical concerts. I released the DVD of the Moores Opera Center of Houston’s production of composer Robert Nelson’s Room With A View and Acorn Media had released the DVD of my production of Peter Schickele’s PDQ Bach in Houston (we have a problem).
At the party I suggested that I might be a good idea to film all 17 concerts at the 2007 festival and Mark agreed. I then pitched the idea to Acorn and they agreed to fund the production.
The filming was scheduled and entailed the recording of the sound digitally and a three camera, high definition video shoot. The biggest challenge for the production was to have the filming have a very minimal impact on the paying customers of the festival. Three pedestals were placed in the Breakers where cameramen could film and not get in the way of the audience. Cameras all recorded to videotape and then the tapes were edited after the end of the festival.
The 10 DVD set has a list price of $125 and not only contain 90 minutes of great performances but also another 30 minutes of concerts in the other venues, i.e. the Elms, Marble House, Ochre Court, etc. These extras were only archive videos using one camera but they give a nice idea of what the rest of the festival looks like and in addition were recorded in full digital stereo sound.
In addition to all of the musical content I also spent two days interviewing Mark about the history of the festival, his relationship with the artists and comments on some of the more prominent composers.
In between the time of the party and the beginning of filming of the Festival I had decided to try my hand at directing and had taken on the job of filming the Louisiana State University Opera Theater’s production of Carlisle Floyd’s Willie Stark. Roger coached me through the whole production. He also coached me for the 17 day shoot of the Festival.
To say the least, without Roger’s help and encouragement, this project would never have seen the light of day.
Starting July 11th, we will start filming the 40th anniversary season of the festival. We’ll be doing something a little bit different. I will be teaming up with Assistant Stage Director of the Metropolitan Opera, Peter McClintock to film a documentary about one of the Festival’s stalwarts, pianist Pedja Muzijevic, who will be performing in thirteen concerts during the seventeen-day festival. We will be following him around, filming his rehearsals and interaction with the other performers. Also we will film John Bayless’ concert recapping his many years of festival appearances. Assisting in the filming will be videographer Dillon Poole and our video intern, Jake Records.
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