Word: napoleons
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Coppola continues, "I have two ideas I tried to integrate. Abel Gance was concerned with presenting a man, not a documentary. He wanted to involve his audience. So while I knew that the music had to be contemporary, I decided to rely on the Revolutionary and Romantic music from Napoleon's France...
...recently got a letter from a woman who'd seen it every single time it played in New York last year. She told me, 'Mr. Coppola, now when I go to Napoleon, I just sit and close my eyes. I listen to your music and it tells me what is happening in the film...
Coppola parallels Gance's thematic conception for the film with his liberal use of the Wagnerian leitmotif: themes suited to a particular idea and varied according to situation. This, he asserts, concurs with Gance's Wagnerian idea of three operas: Napoleon's rise during the French Revolution; the establishment of the Empire and his despotism; his downfall and death...
...like writing film and opera music. I believe that it fulfills the needs of particular situations. My opera, Escorial, to a text by Michel de Gilderone, is a return to the Theater of the Absurd, popular in the '20s, but in a very contemporary style. In a sense, Napoleon is a film-opera. The San Fransisco Opera has even included it in the subscription part of its season...
...After Napoleon has finished its American tour, Coppola will be able to return to the projects he abandoned to conduct his score. He intends to write the score for Francis Ford's two upcoming movies, The Back Stallion II, and The Little Mermaids, which is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. "I read that story recently for the first time. I want to capture the dreamy quality of it in my music," he asserts. Also in the works is a second opera, but first he wants to see Escorial performed; Sarah Caldwell has already expressed interest...