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The Fly tickets are now available to be purchased or sold online at Stubhub.com. Where does high art and low art meet? You’d best pose that question to David Cronenberg, the famed cult film director whose visions of insect and flesh-inspired horror have influenced movies for decades now. But while he’s made his name in the world of cinema, he’s branching out into an entirely new field. An opera adaptation of Cronenberg’s best known movie, The Fly, will premiere in September 2008 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Cronenberg directed the opera, and the music was composed by Howard Shore, who was also responsible for the film’s score (as well as many others he’s collaborated on with Cronenberg). There’s a good chance the opera crowd might not be familiar with the gory special effects Cronenberg’s fan base appreciates. For them, this series of articles will be helpful. Each article briefly examines one of the films from the director’s extensive canon. The film that Cronenberg’s new opera is based on was probably his most commercially successful film, despite the stomach-turning special effects involved. Released in 1986 and starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, it became the director’s best-known signature work. It goes without saying that if you’re interested in seeing the opera adaptation of this work, you should first see this movie—itself a remake of a rather tame sci-fi flick from 1958 (and starring Vincent Price). The story is fairly well-known now. An awkward but brilliant scientist has invented a teleportation device. Enter one pod in his loft apartment, flip a switch, and your molecules are scrambled and rearranged in the exiting pod. But when he tries it on himself, a housefly follows him into the first pod. He exits and feels fine—better than ever, in fact. But little by little, he sheds his humanity and the fly’s DNA takes prominence. Like Max Renn in Videodrome, the main character’s dependence and reverence for technology ultimately leads to his downfall. Well, perhaps that word is too strong. Cronenberg never relies on simple moralizing, though both films are clearly tragedies. But he allows his characters to complete their metamorphoses, to transform completely into their non-human selves, and allows us to see the result. He leaves the moralizing up to the viewer, who can make their own mind up about how repulsive these characters become. The brilliant thing about The Fly is, of course, the transformation that we watch. The scientist in question goes from craving power to achieving it—but at the price of his human frailty. He, too, discovers the New Flesh, and wears it well. But watching his jaw melt off his face raises questions about to what degree we allow technology—often portrayed in Cronenberg’s movies by mindless insects—to control us. Written by Andrew Good and sponsored by StubHub.com. StubHub sells sports tickets, concert tickets, theater tickets and more to just about any event in the world. Don't miss this Cronenberg classic with The Fly tickets.
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