Metropolis: The complete film with original score
Sydney Symphony/Frank Strobel
Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, October 29

A flickering beam of light shows a hapless maiden pursued by a wild-eyed scientist as she ascends the tower of a Gothic cathedral. The orchestra’s uprushing scales reach a thunderous climax as the two grapple on the stone staircase: the evil genius lunges but our heroine leaps into space, swinging perilously on a handy rope, and at that moment, in the concert hall, a bell rings in sonorous synchronism. You can feel the audience’s collective pulse skip a beat.

That was just one of the revelatory moments on offer as Sydneysiders were given the rare opportunity to step back in time and experience an iconic film pretty much as Berliners would have done in 1927. It can only be described as an event, both cinematic and musical. Here we had a two-and-a-half-hour version of Metropolis, Fritz Lang’s cinematic masterpiece, in its most complete form yet thanks to the addition of 25 minutes of previously unknown footage discovered in 2008 in a vault in Buenos Aires. More than that though, the film was accompanied by the original score played by a full symphony orchestra...