Ely Cathedral, where LSC members performed Mahler 2 for Maestro
The 2023 film Maestro, which centres on the love story between composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre, has just been released on Netflix (20 December).
Actor and director Bradley Cooper trained with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin in order to play the role of Bernstein. Carey Mulligan plays Felicia in the film, which has been nominated for four Golden Globe awards.
In addition to the star-studded cast, members of the London Symphony Chorus joined the London Symphony Orchestra for the central choral performance in the film, Mahler’s Symphony No 2.
The performance was filmed in Ely Cathedral in October 2022, recreating Bernstein’s legendary 1973 performance. Enormous effort and attention to detail were made to style every singer in appropriate early 1970s fashion.
Maggie Donnelly was one of the chorus members in the film who remembers working with Bernstein, although not in the 1973 Ely performance.
“What a completely unforgettable few days it was to be transported back to those days. Bradley Cooper’s performance was like watching Bernstein reincarnated. Uncanny and brilliant!”
A later sound recording, of Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, involved the Chorus in a separate session in north London. Mariana Rosas, newly appointed as the LSC’s Chorus Director, prepared the chorus for that recording.
Speaking in a recent interview on this website, she said:
“Maestro was particularly special because it was one of my first engagements with the LSC. I met Yannick before we started recording and he was wonderful and welcoming. At the end both he and Bradley came to say hello and we could see they were pleased with how the day had been. It was a day I’ll never forget. I am so proud we are now part of the official soundtrack of the movie.”
Everyone from the Chorus who took part had been sworn to secrecy until recently, when the film was finally released. Many of the singers went to see it at the London Film Festival in October, where every singer’s name was listed in the credits.
The full soundtrack is available digitally and physically from Deutsche Grammophon. “Maestro” is available on Netflix.
For more information on “Maestro” see: https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81171868