FULL THE SECRET OPERA (David Michalak) Opera-Movie Berkeley CA 2025 Bob Marsh

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: The Secret Opera  
• Composer: Michalak David  
• Libretto: Michalak David  
• Venue & Opera Company: Berkeley, California, Outsound New Music Summit  
• Recorded: 2025
• Type: Movie
• Singers: Bob Marsh
• Conductor:   
• Orchestra:
• Stage Director: David Michalak  
• Costume Designer:   

Information about the Recording

• Published by: David Michalak  
• Date Published: 2026  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: nosubs  

• ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

  David Michalak presenting
  a World Premiere of The Secret Opera a 12 minute film about Grum, an opera singer played by Bob Marsh searching for the key to love & art  in spite of aphonia, inner demons and a ghost that has been haunting and dooming performances in the decaying Opera House. An Expressionistic, Felliniesque, rear window view of opening night jitters.

  Filmed in part in the once glorious Stone Opera in Binghamton, N.Y. built in 1890 and in San Francisco.

  An Opera singer, Grum, excited by his debut, develops this joyous habit of mimicking the sounds of his surroundings, matching pitches and singing back to the sounds of everyday life. As he walks to his performance on opening night he is lured by the sound of a woman’s voice. It’s coming from a movie theater where he is seduced by the image of Aleyesha’s eyes on the movie screen, rendering him speechless…still he must perform his opera and though his vocalizing contains the necessary emotion, he cannot form words. Some say it was anxiety. Others say it was an apparition; the hypnotizing eyes & voice of Aleyesha that made him lose his words and left him doomed to vocalize his opera to a crumbling empty house, forever.

  This is the first studio recording to include the Skatchbox, a musical invention by Thomas Skatchit. (A Skatchbox is a cardboard box with objects attached like toothpicks, nails & washers that are stroked or “played” with combs.)

  Bio: David Michalak has been making films and performing since 1971. He plays lap steel guitar, phantom harp and the Skatchbox. He has founded T.D. Skatchit & Co., Reel Change, Ghost in the House and Dr. Bob playing on and engineering many recordings. His films have been shown at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Castro Theater, Cannes Film Festival, The Roxie Theater and many other less impressive venues.

  music producer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, videographer

   

  

  David J. Michalak

  Hi!  I’m a freelance producer of music in Rotterdam collaborating with many around the globe: LA, San Francisco, Boston, and Brazil. 

  I’ve composed, recorded, mixed, and mastered single and soundtracks in the styles of: singer/songwriter, hard rock, dance, acoustic, 8-bit, orchestral, downtempo, and jazz. I play drums, bass, guitar, and keys.

   

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