LBOpera Cinema
From blood-thirsty Scottish Lords to power-thirsty drug lords, LBO has got your season prep covered! Prepare yourself with our Saturday morning movies at the Art Theater. We've got a motley movie lineup that compliments each one of our boundary-pushing opera productions. Bring your cinephile friends and share a film experience that will be just as unexpected as our borderline season!
We'll provide the coffee and mimosas - you just have to sit back, relax, and immerse yourself! Call the LBO office for more details.
Art Theatre Long Beach
2025 EAST 4th Street
Long Beach, CA 90804
previous movies:
THRONE OF BLOOD
Saturday, October 20, 11am
Prepare yourself for Macbeth by Ernest Bloch with this Japanese cult classic.
If there was ever any doubt about Shakespeare’s work transcending cultural boundaries and artistic mediums, Akira Kurosawa squelched it with his indelible fusion of the playwright’s greatest tragedy with traditional Japanese Noh Theater. Set in feudal Japan, Kurosawa’s 1957 transposition of Macbeth provides a ghostly and powerful counterpoint/introduction to the brilliance and intimacy of Ernest Bloch’s opera. Kurosawa’s portrayal of a ruthless warrior’s bloody rise to power and self-implosion illuminates the adaptability of this cautionary tale of cutthroat ambition.
VINCENT AND THEO
Saturday, November 3, 11am
This film paints a colorful backdrop for Michael Gordon's opera Van Gogh.
A 1990 biographical film detailing the deeply personal and at times painful relationship between Vincent Van Gogh and his brother, Theo. Robert Altman's visual creation illuminates the disparity between the internal torment of the brilliant artist and the struggle of a savant engaged in the world around him.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
Saturday, November 17, 11am
Compare this "other" Usher opera with Philip Glass' upcoming LBO production of The Fall of the House of Usher.
Towards the end of his life, Claude Debussy began working on two small operas that were to be paired together and that set Poe’s stories: The Devil in the Belfry and The Fall of the House of Usher. Both remained unfinished but Musicologist Robert Orledge completed and staged Usher in 2007. This dazzling, hyper-sophisticated staging was filmed at the Bregenz Festival in Austria. It is paired with Prélude à l'Après-Midi d'un Faun. Come and see yet another master composer's interpretation of Poe's most infamous and chilling tale.
TRAFFIC
Saturday, February 23, 11:30am
Gabriela Ortiz's opera Camelia la Texana - Only the Truth is a docu-opera about a dangerous smuggling operation from Mexico to Los Angeles.
Prepare yourself for that journey with a wider look at the seedy network of drug traffickers and the officers trying to stop them. Steven Soderbergh's Academy Award winning film provides a panorama of characters from both sides of the border, creating three vignettes that follow the dealings of king-pins, crooked cops, users, and dealers.
WAGNER AND ME
Sunday, March 3, 11:30 am
Stephen Fry has been a lifelong fan of the music of Richard Wagner - the world's most controversial composer. But Stephen is also Jewish and, as he is acutely aware, the intensity of his enthusiasm for the composer was matched - or even surpassed - by that of Hitler.
In this film Stephen makes a journey to explore his fascination for Wagner and confront his troubled legacy. Can he disentangle the music he loves from its poisonous links with Hitler?
Animated by Stephen's wit and intelligence, and featuring a soundtrack of Wagner's best-loved music, Wagner & Me is a fantastic introduction to the life and art of one of the most important composers ever, and a must-see film for those who already know and love his work.
EVERYONE STARES: THE POLICE INSIDE OUT
Saturday, April 20, 11am.
Tickets are $10 and available through LBO Ticket Services (562.432.5934)
Come see his documentary outlining The Police's rise to fame from their own perspective. The project represents a culmination of Copeland's super 8 footage that spans the heydays of the band's existence and the film also includes rarely heard live performance footage, original studio tracks, and new arrangements of classic Police tunes made for this film alone. Come and track the artistic progression from rock-god to operatic composer.
