When most people think of silent film music, an image of an old lady pounding away at a dusty organ, making some interminable, repetitive racket is immediately conjured up. But then again, most people have never seen The Alloy Orchestra perform.
Alloy -- a three-man musical ensemble that combines synthesizers, a musical saw, a clarinet and a hand-made percussion instrument, composed of assorted metal objects, affectionately referred to as the "rack of junk" -- has been hailed by Roger Ebert as "the best in the world at accompanying silent films."
Their stunningly inventive, powerfully percussive music has delighted audiences the world over, playing new scores to classic films like Buster Keaton's "Steamboat Bill Jr." and Fritz Lang's sci-fi masterpiece, "Metropolis."
The Dartmouth Film Society is set to host this exciting, eclectic trio on Wednesday, April 19, as they accompany a screening of the classic silent film "The Phantom of the Opera," starring horror icon Lon Chaney. The screening is part of the Film Society's term-long series of films about music and musicians, "Aural Pleasure: Music in the Movies." The film is being presented in a beautiful print restored by Box 5, a company founded by Alloy Orchestra director Ken Winokur and his filmmaker wife.
Based out of Cambridge, Mass., Alloy began in the early nineties as an experimental music project and quickly gained popularity. When in 1991 a programmer at a Boston-area theater asked them to accompany a silent film the theater was to play, the trio found their calling and since then have emerged as the most potent and well-respected force in silent film music in the world. Their scores are featured on DVDs and they have even gone on to compose original scores for new movies, including two films by the acclaimed documentarian Errol Morris. Among other places, the trio has played at the Lincoln Center, the Louvre, the Telluride Film Festival and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in Los Angeles.
Alloy has a unique approach to silent film, creating both sound effects and unique musical scores that move between genres and styles deftly. At one moment, the three musicians might sound like a German bar band from the 1920s. Moments later, they sound like a full orchestra, or, as one reviewer put it, like "haunting radio signals from Mars."
The centerpiece of any Alloy performance, however, is the famed "rack of junk," an ever-changing percussion instrument that utilizes found objects -- stop signs, trash cans lids, light fixtures -- to create its unique sound. Performed by all three members, the rack of junk is the not-so-secret weapon in the ensemble's arsenal, with a dynamic range of beats.
A massive hit in its era and an early American horror classic, "Phantom" is the story of a disfigured, deranged music lover (Chaney) who haunts the catacombs and sewers beneath a Parisian opera house, obsessed with the beautiful Christine, a young singer in the company. His obsession turns dangerous when Christine is denied a lead role in a new opera, and soon the opera house becomes a stage of horrors as the Phantom enacts his revenge.
The music for "Phantom" has been hailed as one of Alloy's most successful scores to date, and it's no wonder to see how the film could inspire such an acclaimed work: The film itself holds up as a masterpiece of tension with an incredible lead performance, beautiful shadowy set decoration and lighting that evokes the best of German Expressionism. The revelation of the Phantom's face is considered one of the great moments in silent cinema, and the film is beloved to this day for ushering in the golden era of the American horror film. Most spectacular in "Phantom" are two gorgeous set-pieces, the performance of "Faust" and the Masquerade Ball, shot in a limited two-tone Technicolor -- still an experimental process at the time -- that brings the exciting spectacle to life.
The performance will begin at 7 p.m. in Spaulding Auditorium. Tickets for the show can be purchased after 6:30 p.m. at the Hopkins Center box office at a price of $5 with a Dartmouth ID, or $7 for general admission. Admission is free for those holding the Dartmouth Film Society pass.
