FILM OVERVIEW

The viewer is instantly plunged into an atmospheric, decaying, beautiful world where ambiguity reigns supreme and the stream of consciousness is governed by the world of song. Is it a sanctuary to enrich your senses or could it be purgatory? Our four muses take us through these fleeting moments of reflection, discipline, loneliness and joy where they tempt and entice us to remember what has gone before. What happens once everyone’s cases are packed? Does it all just go back to the beginning again?

Original concept and direction by Cameron Menzies, Old Friends and Other Days takes the music of Irish composer William Vincent Wallace and one of his contemporaries William Balfe and theatricalises each piece into epic storytelling through song: taking the ordinary into extraordinary and back again. Four of Northern Ireland’s shining lights in opera are featured in this film, Mary McCabe, Emma Morwood, Carolyn Dobbin and Sinéad O’Kelly.