Michael Shapiro is a New York-based composer and conductor who, in 2002, created a new score for the 1931 classic horror film, Frankenstein
Stories: Michael Shapiro’s Frankenstein
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In 1931, when James Whale rescued Universal Pictures from sure bankruptcy with his masterpiece, Frankenstein (starring Colin Clive and a then-unknown actor by the name of Boris Karloff), little did producer Carl Laemmle Jr know that the film would become the urtext of all future horror franchises.
The movie was so popular that Universal Pictures became the home of immortal spooky pictures – helped by its predecessor Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi. But the 1931 Frankenstein lacked something: it had no film score. At the time, films could only hold one soundtrack, printed along the edge of the film itself. It would not be until Max Steiner’s 1933 score to King Kong that a score tied to the action would make the filmic experience truly frightening.
So, in 2002, I composed and then conducted a new movie score to be played live to the classic by a chamber orchestra. Regrettably, I did not have the joy of working with James Whale. Instead, I watched the film alone and spotted it myself. My main thoughts were ‘what were the director and his actors trying to do in any given scene, and how could I amplify the action?’ The film is so very dramatic, the acting so very fine; the entire experience so very operatic, that the score flew out of me.
Dramatic music is made to move actors across the stage or, in this case, through filmed action. I listened in the movie for those moments when my music could add something, making what Leonard Maltin called “creaky” into something alive.
It premiered at the opening of the Jacob Burns Film Center in Westchester, New York – the then-Film Society of Lincoln Center’s adjunct theatre. Since then, I have added three other versions to the chamber version: full orchestra, wind ensemble and opera. Over 75 performances have taken place worldwide since, with sold-out crowds for the Los Angeles Opera, Atlanta Opera, Dallas Winds, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, Theatre Trier, Virginia Symphony, United States Navy Band, Royal Canadian Air Force Band and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. This October, it will be performed by the Louisiana Philharmonic, as well as 17 other places.
The opera version that premiered at the Los Angeles Opera just after the pandemic raised interesting questions when being conceived. How could I write a libretto that would be sung by five singers in front of the rolling classic film? Would the singers react to the action and be singing something in English as the drama unfolded? No, that would be amateurish and tacky.
Instead, I thought about what the film was about. Resurrection. Dead parts coming together into a monster who, through Karloff’s great acting, has a soul. I settled on the Latin Requiem Mass for the libretto, and the juxtaposition of the great British acting in the film and the ancient religious rite work perfectly. It gives the film experience depth and resounding emotional resonance.
Interestingly, Frankenstein – The Movie Score became a precursor in many ways to the extremely popular “live to film” productions of orchestral music stripped from recent films. However, the difference here is that a living composer, me, wrote new music for a classic sound film, merging the two experiences into one essential and great horror show.
