film
Gillian B. Anderson
SILeNT FILM SCOreS AND
The PhanTOm Of The OPera
by bill biss
The San Diego Sympony Winter Pops will present
their annual Silent Film Night on Friday, February 6
and Saturday, February 7 with the return of the silent
classic horror film The Phantom of the Opera. Gillian B.
Anderson is conducting the orchestra for these per-
formances. She is a noted and acclaimed conductor,
esteemed author and also has worked on the recon-
struction and restoration of numerous silent film
scores. Now, most people envision The Phantom of
the Opera as a romantic though disfigured character
from the Andrew Lloyd Webber stage production.
The original phantom in the 1925 silent film played
by Lon Cheney is chillingly evil without an ounce of
goodness in his heart. Speaking with Ms. Anderson
recently, we discussed her passion for her career and
some intricate details about the original silent film
version of The Phantom of the Opera.
Anderson has a definite love for the reconstruc-
tion and restoration of silent film scores. As she puts
it, “Apparently I like to find out why the two things
work together. What makes the music enhance the
image and how the image affects the music? I think
it’s been something I’ve been interested in since I
watched early cartoons. I have always just found it
very compelling.” One would think it would be com-
plicated to find the original scores to any of these
silent films, as it has been over 80 years since their
initial origin. Anderson explains a bit of the process
in the discovery, “It depends on which film you are
talking about. There is a finding aid, which I made for
the Library of Congress, which shows which scores
had full orchestral parts or just a piano and conduc-
tor score. In some cases, all you have is a description
of what happened; sometimes we had a list of the
pieces that were used in a particular theatre. The
24 RAGE monthly | FEBRUARY 2009
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104