100th anniversary of F.W.Murnau’s Faust – New Live Score by Igor Yachmenov
About This Event
At Berlin, the 100th‑anniversary screening of F.W. Murnau’s Faust is presented with a new live score by Igor Yachmenov. Murnau’s silent‑era images, noted for choreographic control of movement and shadow, are matched to Yachmenov’s structured, real‑time composition that treats sound as choreography’s partner and foregrounds timing and formal interplay.
About Faust(opera)
Neil Mackenzie / NZOpera
Charles Gounod’s *Faust* (1859) reworks Goethe’s tale into a five-act French grand opera, centering on a scholar’s bargain with the devil and the collateral damage it leaves in Marguerite’s life. In New York, the piece has long held repertory weight, with the Metropolitan Opera presenting it early in the company’s history and returning to it across eras. At Berlin, Amore Opera frames the story through F. W. Murnau’s silent *Faust*, paired with a newly composed live score by Igor Yachmenov, treating image, movement, and sound as interlocked dramaturgy. One clear takeaway: this material endures because it refuses to separate private desire from public consequence.
About the Artists
Igor Yachmenov
Igor Yachmenov is a dance artist and composer whose work often sits between movement and live music. In Berlin, he has presented a new live score alongside the 100th-anniversary screening of F. W. Murnau’s *Faust*, responding to silent-era cinema in real time.
F. W. Murnau
F. W. Murnau is a German filmmaker whose silent-era work continues to circulate in performance contexts as much as in cinema history. In presentations such as the 100th-anniversary screening of *Faust* at Berlin, his images are paired with contemporary live scoring, including collaborations with composer Igor Yachmenov.