Date:         Mon, 14 Nov 2005 16:33:16 -0500
Reply-To:     Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
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From:         Robert Hodge <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: Oscar Levant-William Kernell Opera 'Carnival'
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It's Warner Oland , please. Not Werner.
Not to be nit picky.

Is this one on DVD?

BH



>>> [log in to unmask] 11/14/2005 2:03 PM >>>
Thomas Stern wrote:
> This 'opera' composed for the film CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OPERA.
> Can anyone identify who the actual singers in the film are?  Thanks.
> Best wishes, Thomas.
> 
Boris Karloff plays an opera baritone (singing dubbed by Rico Ricardi)

suffering from amnesia and a desire for revenge. He is suspected of a 
murdering a woman onstage but detective Charlie Chan (Werner Oland) has

his doubts. This was one of the best of the low-budget Chan films based

around the Honolulu detective created by Earl Derr Biggers. Oscar
Levant 
composed an imaginary opera called Carnival for this film including 
overture and arias. The libretto by William Kernell was created around
a 
Mephistopheles costume used by Lawrence Tibbett in Metropolitan. It was

given to the Chan picture to be worn on-stage by Chaney in the stabbing

scene. Levant discusses this opera in his autobiography A Smattering of

Ignorance and there is an analysis of it by Irene Hahn Atkins in Source

Music in Motion Pictures. H. Bruce Humberstone directed for 20th
Century 
Fox. Black and white. 66 minutes.

Copyright @ 1997 by Ken Wlaschin. All rights reserved.

Mike
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