When American composer Philip Glass presented his live music film production “La Belle et la Bete (Beauty and the Beast)” for the first time in 1994, it was seen as a radical attempt.

Harnessing Jean Cocteau’s 1946 black-and-white film “La Belle et la Bete” as the visual base of his performance of the classic fairy tale, Glass revolutionized the cinematic world by replacing the film’s audio with live vocals and an orchestral accompaniment, breathing new life into the classic film as a stage performance piece. 

Glass’ rendition of “La Belle et la Bete” is still being performed around the world more than two decades after the composer premiered his production in Italy, and Koreans will have a rare chance to see the performance at the LG Arts Center on Tuesday and Wednesday evening. 

“Cocteau was a poet, a painter and he was a filmmaker. He was an extraordinarily talented man and he was remembered for his remarkable achievements in all these areas. So I was very interested in the kind of work that came out of this kind of mind,” said Glass, 79, during a press conference held at the LG Arts Center in Gangnam-gu, Seoul on Tuesday.

“What I did was actually quite radical, considering how (composing) was usually done,” he said.

“What I did was I took these movies and I decided to make a different collaboration, one in which film and theater and dance could be combined in a performance.”

“(The composition process) was very logical and, if you think about it, it’s not so hard to do,” Glass continued, adding the entire process only took him about two weeks to complete. “But as far as I know, no one has ever done this before or since, which surprised me because it’s so easy to do.”

The composer was originally known for his compositions for ballets, operas and symphonies prior to his jump into the silver screen music scene in the 1980s. Glass has roughly 40 film scores to his credit.

Glass is a three-time Academy Award nominee, having composed scores for big-time Hollywood films including Martin Scorsese‘s “Kundun,” “The Truman Show” and “The Hours,” as well as for director Park Chan-wook’s first English-language film “Stoker.” Working with the renowned composer, Park referred to Glass as “our generation’s Mozart.”

“When I began to work in film, I became very curious about the ways the composer can bring his music to the film. In the commercial film world and in most of the film world, the music is left to the very end of the film process,” he explained, adding that he decided to take a different approach and began writing music scores for movies during the filmmaking process. 

“I was interested in getting away from the formulas of film scoring and trying to find new ways of working,” said Glass.

“La Belle et la Bete” will be staged at the LG Arts Center for two nights only on Tuesday and Wednesday. Ticket prices range from 40,000 won to 100,000 won. For more information, visit www.lgart.com.

Following the LG Arts Center staging, “La Belle et la Bete” will be performed Friday and Saturday as part of this year’s Tongyeong International Music Festival in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province. Tickets to the TIMF performances have been sold out.

Following the opera performances, TIMF will hold “An Evening with Philip Glass” on March 27, where audience members will not only get to hear the iconic composer perform, but also listen in on an interview between Glass and TIMF CEO Florian Riem.

By Julie Jackson (juliejackson@heraldcorp.com)