From Frankenstein: a 30 minute, staged song cycle AND film: Thomas Edison's Frankenstein (1910) March 27, 2004

From Frankenstein

for mezzo soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano.
Stefan Weisman / composer
Mark Leibert / installation and animation

From Frankenstein Synopsis

The history of recent science has been replete with works of art awed by its power. One such artist was Mary Shelley whose Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus has had an enduring power of rendering humanity's fear of technological advance. In the preface to her 1831 edition of Frankenstein, Shelley stated that she hoped "her hideous progeny would prosper". Both the text and monster have indeed prospered in the works of pop culture, literary theory, and the imagination of the public in general.

Science and our ability as a species to manipulate life have continued to be a controversial topic. Hybrid organisms produced with genetic engineering offer hopes and fears of producing an effect of desired or monstrous outcomes. Many artists have taken a cue from Shelley and others, or responded in their own right to the development of scientific technological advancement. From Frankenstein is about life, creation, and our position in the world.

Stefan Weisman's From Frankenstein, a 30 minute long composition for singer and five instruments, falls somewhere between song cycle and one-woman opera. The mezzo-soprano soloist takes on the roles of Dr. Frankenstein, the Creature, Mary Shelley, and even the "first man," Adam, in the opening of the work. The characters reflect on the theme of the implications of creation, and the relation between the creator and the created. In the literary sense Dr. Frankenstein creates the monster from "cut and paste" technology. The libretto, likewise, uses a "cut and paste" strategy:

o Beginning. Adam asks God, "Did I request thee maker from my clay to mould me man?" (Mary Shelley used this quote from Milton's "Paradise Lost" as a prologue to Frankenstein)
o Mary Shelley's recollects a sleepless night when the novel's inception came to her in a "hideous" dream (From Mary Shelley's own introduction to her novel)
o Dr. Frankenstein curses his creation
o The Creature eloquently remembers his own inception and, like Adam originally asked God, the Creature asks Dr. Frankenstein "Why?"
o Mary Shelley, again, from her writings about the concepts in her Frankenstein novel: "Frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world?"

The piece was premiered by Hai-Ting Chinn, mezzo-soprano, with the New Millennium Chamber Ensemble, winners of the 1995 Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Artists International Competition.

The set design by Mark Leibert adds the visual component. Animation is projected on an 8 ft by 24 ft painting. The lighting references genre films associated with the monster motif and film noir. The set is derived from the tension existing between the supplied order of nature and the one being introduced by modern science. A simple set of planes governed by the Fibonacci series of numbers maintains a crisp architecture, which accepts the code and instructions suggested by the DNA sequences projected onto a portion of the panels.

film: Thomas Edison's Frankenstein (1910)
Angela Dalle Vacche, Georgia Institute of Technology, guest speaker
When you think of Thomas Edison You think of Edison Light Beer and the Light Bulb.If you dig a little deeper you find out that he was a pioneer of the Moving Picture industry with both content and hardware.Very few people know of his work in film and even fewer know of this gem. Edison's 1910 version of Mary Shelley's novel is the first ever cinematic treatment of this classic tale.

more information:
http://www.filmthreat.com/Features.asp?Id=283