Job Specifics:

Details:

EDWARD ZAK was a 15-year-old music student at the Moscow Conservatory when he began his affair with Tchaikovsky in 1869. This is the secondary role in Love Song.

The dancer playing Edward in this non-dialogue role must be noticeably smaller than the actor playing Tchaikovsky, to accentuate the age difference.

Edward is clean-shaven.

VERY IMPORTANT: if the actor who plays Edward is older than 16, he must look 16 or 17. The role will require about five days of filming spread over a four-week period.

This is an ideal role for a dancer trying to break into acting.

A copy of the film in DVD format, in a DVD presentation case, will be given to the artist.

LOVE SONG: The Triumph and Tragedy of Tchaikovsky is a never-before-told biopic drama behind one of Tchaikovsky’s most popular compositions, the fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet – which spawned one of the world’s most famous and instantly recognisable love themes.

The film’s story is told through the voice of Tchaikovsky as he looks back on his life. The scenes are enacted against the voice-over of Tchaikovsky, combined with lip-synch spoken dialogue (usually to camera), and accompanying music by the composer that underscores a scene’s atmosphere.

In the 28-minute film short, Tchaikovsky is depicted in two crucial periods: aged 29 at the start of his relationship with Edward Zak; and at 53 (the age when he died) as he looks back on his life.

Tchaikovsky's same-sex orientation, which he kept private, has traditionally been considered a major factor behind these crises.


Even so, the composer of The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, The Queen of Spades, Eugene Onegin, the “1812” Overture and six symphonies was torn by ambivalent feelings on the subject of sexuality and marriage.

He married former music student Antonina Milyukova after receiving a series of impassioned letters from her. Almost as soon as the wedding ended, Tchaikovsky knew he had made a mistake: she was a nymphomaniac.

Stories of doomed love always resonated deeply with the composer. Romeo and Juliet was no exception. When, aged 29 and a Professor at the Moscow Conservatory, Tchaikovsky took up Shakespeare’s play as a musical subject, he was deeply in love with Eduard Zak, a 15-year-old student at the conservatory. At the end of his life he was still dreaming – and having nightmares – about Edward.

Love Song: The Triumph and Tragedy of Tchaikovsky will be filmed in a variety of stunning locations, mainly in Hertfordshire. The centre of operations will be the filmmaker’s home in Kings Langley - 25 minutes by train from Euston.

Filmmaker Ian Woodward was formerly a show-business writer for Britain’s national newspapers and magazines. He appeared regularly on the BBC as presenter (among others) of Radio 2’s Jazz in Britain and as an entertainment contributor to Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.

He is the author of more than 30 books, among them Audrey Hepburn: Fair Lady of the Screen (a worldwide best-seller and never out of print since first published in 1984 and issued as an eBook in 2012 and available worldwide on Amazon); The Werewolf Delusion; Glenda Jackson: A Study in Fire and Ice; The Story of Clowns; Dance; and and the best-seller Poems for Christmas.

Audrey Hepburn: Fair Lady of the Screen spawned the musical Fair Lady of the Screen, composed by Bee Gees keyboardist Rudi Dobson. The musical was released on CD by President Records.

His last four films – The Red Rose, Too Many Ghosts, Silly Robin, From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields - have won 22 international awards and been screened on TV, in theatres and open-air cinemas across the United States and the United Kingdom, as far afield as Armenia, Australia and South Korea, and right across Europe, taking in Russia, Hungary, Poland, the Ukraine, Italy, Estonia, Malta and the Czech Republic.

Too Many Ghosts will be screened in Moscow in September and in Los Angeles in December.

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