Directed by Scottish Opera’s Antonia Bain and composed by Samuel Bordoli, this exhilarating union of opera and animation delights the ears, charms the eyes, and argues that opera, not The Big Bang, is the reason we’re all here.
Since the days of Disney’s Fantasia, that 1940 anthology where a hat-snatching mouse corralled a gang of naughty brooms to the sound of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, classical music has paired very well with animation.
It’s a match made in Disneyland, one so fitting that many future animated shorts like What’s Opera Doc, Silly Symphonies and Rabbit of Seville, ditched the dialogue altogether and went all in on classical music as their language of choice.
It’s a natural fit, then, for Scottish Opera’s latest short film, Josefine, to go the way of the mouse. Adapted from Franz Kafka’s ‘Josefine The Singer’, this is a warmly familiar tale of a magical creature (is she a chick? A Dodo?) rising up against her mythical oppressors, all to the trills and vibrato of glorious opera.
Yet, we don’t begin with singing. Perhaps Bain is accounting for the elitist and inaccessible stigma which opera can carry around, and a lack of broad appeal certainly makes any vocal gymnastics here a potential hindrance to some. So, she hooks us by the impressive visuals of our villain, a fiendish water spirit, and leaves the singing for the second act.
The spirit is reminiscent of the evil Suigyo in Myiazaki’s Ponyo, another twisting mass of nasty liquid that rules a fictional kingdom. He shapeshifts, flies, and contorts his body in every way animation director Sophie Bird can imagine — if nothing else, the opening section is a showcase for just how sophisticated her animation is.
Though, his solo trip through the rotten kingdom is short-lived. After stumbling upon a secret egg, the water spirit kick-starts the birth of a small, delicate creature that, upon breaking free of its shell, bursts into beautiful, uplifting song.
‘Josefine!’ The creature cries, the voice of Zoe Drummond so powerful it breaks the desert apart, prompting the water spirit to sing its own song in retaliation. So, here is where the opera starts, and it’s glorious. It’s a clever way to introduce such a potentially divisive element into the mix — by making us invest in the impressive animation, the ‘opera’ of it all feels like a natural addition.
Though, when shifting focus to Josefine, we’re met with certain drawbacks. Her sections are brimming with imaginative set pieces, but ultimately play in familiar waters. She’s Rapunzel, a girl who grows up — a process that happens double quick — to find that her only friend intends on keeping her captive in a tower.
Even though fairytales and animation are essentially the bacon and eggs of entertainment, I hoped Scottish Opera had something more to say with its story. As a light-hearted introduction to opera films, it’s a meaningful effort, and a hyper-focused narrative with only two characters is always going to prove a challenge.
If Josefine is the first in an ever-growing catalogue of Scottish Opera shorts, then this is a great starting point. It’s stylish and clever, a foundation that will hopefully be refined over time, perhaps even double quick.
