Curled in a bed in a hospital room with the air of ageing decay, Janet Frame writes in a notebook before concealing it under her pillow.
The opening scene of The Strangest of Angels, based on the 2022 New Zealand Opera production of the same name, was filmed on location at the former Kingseat Psychiatric Hospital in Auckland.
Opera singers Anna Leese and Jayne Tankersley were going into the unknown. While both seasoned opera stars, neither had done any film work before.
Yet they turned up on day one, started filming straight away and continued for three full days.
Director and producer Rebecca Tansley says given their inexperience in film and television, the pair left nothing to spare in their commitment to the process.
"There was no rehearsal time or workshop time, the things directors like to have — we just had to run with it. They were pros — man they left it all out there. I really couldn’t have asked for better."
The time restraints were basically down to funding. New Zealand Opera had received funding from Creative New Zealand from its Covid arts recovery programme and after another project got canned due to Covid decided to use it to film The Strangest of Angels.
The opera itself, inspired by Frame’s time in Seaclifff Mental Hospital, was created by a Dunedin team of composer Kenneth Young, librettist Georgia Jamieson Emms and Leese and directed by Eleanor Bishop. Tansley also lived in Dunedin for 15 years but is now based in Auckland.
NZ Opera approached Tansley, who had filmed its production of Semele at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Auckland in 2020 which had quite a bit of success, to see if she would take on its latest work.
"New Zealand opera said ‘yes, great idea, make it happen’ and I’m up for a challenge. I’m constantly interested in doing new things."
She could see filming The Strangest of Angels in that way would enhance the storytelling, emphasising the psychological drama of piece, which is essentially about the relationship between Frame, played by Tankersley, and a fictitious nurse, Katherine, played by Leese.
"Even though it is inspired by events in Janet Frame’s life, the story itself is fiction."
An example of film’s ability is the first "intermezzo" when the music changes and Frame has a flashback — that was something Tansley thought about doing very early on in the planning stages.
"In a live show, of course, something like that is much harder to do, but I wanted to show the audience how Janet had the ability, when cooped within these walls, to escape in her mind. The film is — intentionally — quite claustrophobic but in those moments we can venture outside you really feel the space and the environment."
But the funding was limited, which restricted the time she had to film to a very intensive four days all up, including time on site without the singers and time off site.
"This qualifies as a low-budget film, so it was challenging to achieve the vision we have on a pretty modest sum of money."
Luckily, the filming occurred after the opera was staged in Auckland and Dunedin, she says.
"They very much had the work — they had internalised it and done work with Eleanor Bishop — so the timing was great."
"I went out for reccy and it was just perfect. We were fortunate in that regard to have that available. I didn’t really have to do a lot to the location, fortunately, as I didn’t have budget for it."
The site’s ageing appearance and air of decay added a "stylised realism" to the film.
"The film happens a bit out of time and space. It’s obviously not a really fully functioning proper hospital as there is too much disrepair."
Combined with a crew keen to be involved in something different, everyone came together and made it happen, she says.
One of Tansley’s favourite moments while filming was when Katherine the nurse pushes the trolley of instruments down the corridor. Leese gave a "straight" take and then Tansley suggested she show what Katherine would do when no-one was watching her.
"Anna gave a hilarious performance of dancing down the corridor with the trolley and the crew was all in fits of laughter. A little bit of that made it into the film. Some of it was just too funny — although a stand-out performance from Anna that I would love to put on a ‘making of’ reel for the DVD."
So to have it accepted for the New Zealand Film Festival is "super exciting", she says.
"When I submitted the film I was not sure how the film would be received. There are a lot of preconceptions about opera, as we all know and acknowledge, so I’m rapt it was considered a worthy contender."
As prior to the festival the only people who have seen the film were the cast and crew, she was dying to see what the audience thought of it.
The Strangest of Angels is the latest of a number of art films Tansley has made, starting with a documentary on an aspiring pianist in Crossing Rachmaninoff, then a behind-the-scenes documentary The Heart Dances — the Journey of The Piano: the Ballet before doing Semele.
As she is very interested in the arts and a firm advocate for them, doing these sorts of projects is "enormously satisfying".
"Creatively, I’m interested in the arts and they’re definitely struggling, which is one of the reasons why I enjoy it so much."
She also believes the arts play an important role in society, giving it an opportunity to reflect back on itself.
Making opera films, which has been done overseas since the 1940s, was also a chance to capture a performance that once staged is over.
"Performances are so often ephemeral, so film captures those moments in a more permanent way."
While opera has the music and drama that make it attractive to film, doing so often makes the story clearer for the audience.
"One of the difficulties with opera, in particular non-English operas, is that it is difficult to understand unless you are familiar with the story. You don’t have that with film.
"In filming it there are tricks you use, doing close-ups and editing. You can often make the story much clearer for the non-opera-literate audience, making it much easier to engage with the characters and story."
TO SEE:
The Strangest of Angels, NZIFF, The Regent Theatre, August 13, 6.15pm, August 16, 3.30pm.
