TRIPTYCH

A lyrical short film in the 21st century

THE PROJECT

  • How it started

    Initiated in early 2022 by opera singer and director Jean-baptiste Mouret, the Tryptique project was conceived as a tribute to the masterpiece of Italian opera Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), by bringing to the screen three melodies from contemporary American composer Ned Rorem (1923-2022). As a triangular work, Puccini's Triptych is a set of three one-hour operas that synthesize the fundamentals of the human soul through three different stories: Il Tabarro evokes the crime of passionate love, Suor Angelica the abandonment to God and Gianni Schicchi the greed of man. In this way, Ned Rorem's three melodies, The Sick Wife, Love and The Serpent, echo the central themes of Puccini's work, where Love, Death and Humor together form a profound expression of human life.

    Having already produced several videos on the music of Johannes Brahms, Maurice Ravel and Charles Ives, Jean-Baptiste Mouret has now developed a project combining tradition and modernity, with the aim of contributing to the dissemination of contemporary lyrical creation.

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  • Why create a lyrical short film today?

    As a professional opera singer, Jean-Baptiste Mouret has seen for several years the difficulties of the opera world, which, while seeking to please its public, must make the effort to offer a renewal of its repertoire in order to arouse curiosity. And yet, new works remains available to few, and struggle to reach broader audiences. To keep theatres full, the opera world tends to repeat itself and sees its repertoire reduced to twenty or so titles. It is necessary to find ways of reaching new audiences, which to make things easier, is exposed to an almost unlimited cultural offer…

    As an omnipresent aspect of our society, images and films are an extremely powerful vector for disseminating art in general, and this is why Jean-Baptiste Mouret has committed itself to the production of lyric films, contributing to the renewal of the lyric repertoire by proposing a work of art that deals with the contemporary world and that can be disseminated to the widest possible audience.

  • What's left to do?

    Started in early 2022, the triptych project is nearing its end. The three films have been shot, and two of them have been edited and are ready for distribution. The final part of this triptych, "The Serpent," is in the post-production phase. The next step involves converting the filmed images into animation using a process called "rotoscoping." Although AI automation techniques may have some interesting effects, it remains impossible to forgo the artist's touch in coloring each individual image. This work is long and tedious, representing between two hundred and three hundred hours of work for the animator, Tanguy-Goulven Rio-Noël.

    The final element will bring the necessary touch of madness to this ensemble, which, after starting in black and white, passing through blue and green, will be granted a multiple color palette.

    Such work comes with a cost, and after having financed the project independently, we are seeking your help to complete this project and realize the dream of an animated film featuring a singing serpent riding a bicycle through the streets of Leipzig...

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SUBJECT AND STRUCTURE OF THE SHORT-MOVIE

  1. THE SICK WIFE

Composed in 1998, The Sick Wife is the first part of this cycle. In this melody with an almost symmetrical structure, Jane Kenyon's text depicts a lonely and sad woman, waiting in a car parked in an American drugstore's parking lot. In these few minutes of waiting, an entire life unfolds, and it is uncertain whether it will be long-lasting... Filmed in black and white, this first part is dark, almost hopeless, and yet, at the same time, filled with calmness.

As a preview, you can watch it on this website during the crowdfunding campaign

Almost autobiographical melody by Ned Rorem (who, incidentally, is the author of the "Parisians diary," an autobiography where he narrates his years in Paris after the Second World War. Speaking openly about his homosexuality, this book will have some success in the United States), it deals with themes of love, simplicity, honesty, vulnerability, and comfort. Once again, Ned Rorem's music is accurate and effortlessly provides a minimalist framework for Thomas Lodge's poem.
Filmed in a single shot, this second part is a dance duo between Jean-Baptiste Mouret and Taiwanese dancer and director Anzu Lin, in which the bodies of two men seek and find each other to talk about rainbow-colored love.

II. LOVE

III. THE SERPENT

The final piece of this triptych, The Serpent, is the most astonishing of this cycle and undoubtedly a great burst of laughter in Ned Rorem's repertoire. Inspired by Theodore Roethke's eponymous poem, it tells the story of a serpent who, to break his isolation, imagines he can sing as well as the birds he hears above him all day long. However, his song is not to the liking of the blackbirds and other winged creatures of the forest, and they eventually make him regret leaving his burrow.

Of the three parts of this cycle, it is certainly this last one that has represented the most work and reflection. Making a costume for the singing serpent and another for the pianist-bird (Francesca Rambaldi), planning a full day of shooting in three different locations, assembling a group of bird extras, rehearsing the final scene, adjusting lights, and camera angles...

A kind of funny story for adults, particularly suitable for opera singers who tend to disturb their neighbors, it was necessary to find a way to depart from reality and thus give Roethke's fable the possibility of becoming a sort of parallel universe. To give you an idea of the final result, you can view an example of the animation work done by Tanguy Goulven Rio-Noel below



Before animation

After animation

Heavily inspired by the free jazz of the 1970s, this piece, originally written for piano and voice, has been augmented for the occasion with drums, played here by the fiery Johannes von Buttlar. Piano: Francesca Rambaldi Voice: Jean-Baptiste Mouret.

click here if you would like to hear at this song!

AND AFTER ?

After, it will be the promotion of this film in short film festivals, theaters, schools, cinemas, contributing to making the music of our time known, addressing our concerns, and seeking to share a perspective on our world. Consequently, a viewer might feel the urge to step into a theater and attend a contemporary opera, becoming curious about an innovative repertoire and musicians attempting to blend tradition and modernity. And after that, who knows, a new project for a lyrical film...

If you want to support the project, click on the Support link, and you will be redirected to the Ulule crowdfunding website to make a donation.

THE TEAM