Performers - Part 24

 The Fly

The Fly was a 1958 sci-fi horror movie in which a scientist invents a teleportation device. He tests it out on himself, teleporting between two chambers in his lab, but a fly gets into the chamber with him, and when he emerges in the other chamber, he's part man, part fly.

The film was remade in 1986 starring Jeff Goldblum as the scientist.  In the critical teleportation sequence, above, Goldblum is naked, but we can't see much of anything.  In this version, when he emerges from the other teleportation chamber, it looks like he hasn't changed, but afterwards he starts gradually turning into a giant fly.

In 2008, the story was made into an opera, directed by David Cronenberg, who also directed the 1986 film, with music by Howard Shore, who wrote the music for the Lord of the Rings movies. The scientist was played by Canadian bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch. Like the film, the scientist in the opera teleports naked. Unlike the film, we get to see a lot more of him in the opera (above).

This video is from a performance in Paris with subtitles in German, but the singing is actually in English. Don't worry if you can't follow the words, because in this scene the chorus is just chanting technical terms (with a French accent) such as a list of elements: "potassium, iodine, nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, iron."

Here's singer Daniel Okulitch when he emerges from the other teleportation unit.  Like the 1986 movie, he gradually changes into a fly afterwards.

Reviewers hated the opera.  One said "Let's not mince words ... Howard Shore's 'The Fly,' which was given its U.S. premiere Sunday afternoon courtesy of Los Angeles Opera, is the worst opera I've ever seen."  The reviewer hated the music, not the singers or the nudity.

Oh, well.  At least we got to see a good-looking young opera star naked.