P R E S S R E L E A S E S 2001
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July 18, 2001

BQE Adds Live Music to Marlene Dietrich Classic

Film Will Show on Oversized Screen
(North Adams, MA)-- The BQE Project will return to MASS MoCA to accompany The Blue Angel with live original music on Saturday, August 18, at 8:30 P.M. Marlene Dietrich became an immediate international star in her defining role as Lola-Lola, the beguiling temptress who infatuates a respected professor and then ruins his career. The BQE Project, an eight-piece chamber ensemble comprised of classical instrumentalists, has created a new live-to-picture score resulting in an exciting, unusual blend of film and theater. Most notably, Dietrich will seem to be performing hand-in-hand with the live orchestra as she croons the memorable hit Falling in Love Again.

A highly respected professor played by Emil Jannings (winner of the first Academy Award for Best Actor in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh) learns that some of his rowdy students frequent a disreputable nightclub, The Blue Angel. Jannings visits the nightclub to catch them in the act, but instead falls under the spell of Lola-Lola, the alluring cabaret singer played by Deitrich. Already famous for his innovative cinematography, director Josef Von Sternberg made the film early in the advent of talkies, making it the first film to use sound to establish characterization and create atmosphere.

The highest paid actress of the 1930s, Marlene Dietrich is still the standard for cinematic eroticism today. Her fondness for masculine attire, including suits and top hats, spawned a fashion craze. According to legend, director Josef Von Sternberg discovered her singing in a cabaret and cast her for The Blue Angel. She starred in a number of Von Sternberg films including Shanghai Express and Morocco which earned her an Academy Award nomination. Adolf Hitler ordered her to return to Germany, but instead she continued her Hollywood career. Her films, including Destry Rides Again and Seven Sinners, were banned in her homeland even before she began a series of lengthy tours entertaining wartime troops. During the later part of her career, which continued into the 1990s, Dietrich went back and forth between live performances and starring in films including Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright, No Highway in the Sky and Fritz Lang's Rancho Notorious.

The BQE Project is comprised of eight classical musicians who individually perform regularly with the American Symphony Orchestra and New Jersey Symphony. Together they form a chamber ensemble that has quickly developed a loyal following for its original music scores and live performances. John Florio and Tom Nazziola, the ensemble's composers, have produced numerous film and television soundtracks including the music for Dateline NBC, Michael Hayes, This Week in Baseball, and the ESPN documentary Roger Maris: Reluctant Hero. In 1999, BQE accompanied Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush at MASS MoCA, a performance which The Berkshire Eagle called "a marvelous pastiche".

The Screenplay series of silent films with live music is sponsored by First Massachusetts Bank.

Full dinners, snacks, drinks, and dessert from Lickety Split will be available starting at 7:30 P.M. when the doors open.

Tickets for The Blue Angel with The BQE Project on August 18 are $12 for adults and $6 for children under 12. MASS MoCA members receive a 10% discount. Tickets are available through the MASS MoCA Box Office located off Marshall Street in North Adams from 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. every day. Tickets can also be charged by phone by calling 413.662.2111 during Box Office hours or purchased on line at www.massmoca.org.

MASS MoCA, the largest center for contemporary visual and performing arts in the United States, is located off Marshall Street in North Adams on a 13-acre campus of renovated 19th-century factory buildings.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Katherine Myers
(413) 664-4481 x8113
katherine@massmoca.org



MASS MoCA 87 Marshall Street North Adams, Mass. 01247 413.MOCA.111