Delos Diary

As a follow-up to my recent entries about the Delos New York visit — which included a recital reception for Dmitri Hvorostovsky at the Russian Consulate and the Centennial Khachaturian Concert at Carnegie Hall the next night — we returned to LA just in time to attend a special screening of a new film documentary Khachaturian by Peter Rosen at the Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood (the film was offered as an entry in the ongoing Hollywood Film Festival).
Approximately 83 minutes long, the movie covers the fascinating story of Khachaturian's creative life and his struggles with the Soviet system from his youth to his death in 1975. Rosen and his collaborators have combined abundant newsreel and archival footage with recent interviews and historic theatre clips to document the life and music of this great and underappreciated composer. The movie itself will be playing selected runs in various arthouses around the US in the next few months. It should be a promising candidate for inclusion in Academy nominations for Best Documentary Film - 2003.
Having already viewed the film on a VHS cassette, I was pleasantly surprised to see how well it adapted to the enormous state-of-the-art projection in one of the Arclight's superior auditoriums. The music and ballet sequences are quite breathtaking and the solemn scenes of Khachaturian's funeral are extraordinarily moving.
Anyone interested in Russian music and those who created it in the turbulent 20th century should find plenty of material to talk about and think about in this film. In the near future it will probably be released in VHS and DVD format, but if you have the chance to see it on the big screen you should not pass it up.

p.s.: Just out — Khachaturian won Best Documentary at the Hollywood Film Festival.