the filmmakers preface
„Alt gewohntes Geräusch“ (old common noise) Brünhilde sings in Richard Wagners „Götterdämmerung“ when she hears the Valkyries – theme and Waltraute, her sister enters.
A main part of my grow up happend inside of different theatre houses, waiting for my mother finishes her work. Range across the different workshop rooms of the „theatre – makers“, artists and craftsmen.
I’ve learned to be silent in order to support a person who will make her way and career, by being noisy: My mother.
exposé
Kundry, Fricka, Waltraute, Herodias, Amme, Kabanicha, Gräfin Geschwitz –parts for a mezzosoprano and contralto voice.
Julia Juon got to a turning point of her life: She’s prepairing (practcing for) her next part: „Klytemnestra“ for a engagement at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Julia Juon is 66 years and til she will come out with that production, another one and a half years will have been passed. For real she doesn’t even know if she’s still able to sing at that point.
Churches bells and chorals are „alt gewohnte Geräusche“ (old familiar noises) and early musical sounds in the life of Julia Juon. Her father is a church musician, composer and teacher and addicted to the oeuvre of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Now she’s in that age when other people „may“ retire; why doesn’t she want to? Is it the career and the success that makes her stay in her job, not let her getting tired? Or is it a debile or folk musician like „thank you for the music – the songs i’m singing...“-thing? When is the time to stop?
The documentary accompanies Julia Juon to different famous and big operas in europe, as well as to her private home in Kassel, where she lives, takes a break, gets back to balance and power, prepares herself for the next job and practice her next part. She travels to vienna to her répétiteur and supports her husband, stage designer and excellent cook Hermann Feuchter at his first vernissage exhibition as painter.
The movie shows beside in parallel montage, the technical and artificial work of the different departements of the theatre, that function together in the final rehearsals and watches the emotions in their concentrated faces.
the beautiful noise
- How does Julia Juon choose her rolls?
- How is a roll developed from learning the notes to practice and finding the way to sing them „beautiful“?
- The destruction of the „beautiful tones“ to create suspense and expression in the character.
Affecting the sound of a jackhammer to the pop music
„That „bumms-music“ strikes me in my central neuronal system“ (Julia Juon)
As the working title of „old familiar noise“ says, the movie will tell also about „sounds“. About beautiful sounds, and ugly noisiness that is getting on the artists nerves. Is’s about the sounds of the once and the silence of the others. Therefore the movie will try to leave the simple documentary searching access to a poetic, lyric way of visualising the spheric moments of the music theatre hopefully discovering the secret power of attraction that confines Julia Juon in the rooms of international theater stages.
