NEWS
Barbara B. Heyman left this world on May 9, 2025, leaving behind for eternity her lifetime of scholarship and advocacy for the American composer Samuel Barber. Anyone watching the documentary Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty quickly finds her the star of that show, too. At 130 minutes, it follows the spirit of Barbara's exhaustive enthusiasm, and so a few things just never made it into the long final cut. At the composer's centenary celebration hosted by Performing Arts at the Library of Congress in 2010, naively I thought we might be able to cover everything in one sitting to kick off the film project. But in that hallowed Whittall Pavilion surrounded by priceless rare instruments, I found that Barbara had a lot to say — and there's no shortcut to explaining genius. So we pretty soon just packed up, and made our plans to give it a full day in her New York City apartment later that year. The rest became magic; but here in this clip, you see our early try at buckling down, only to find Barbara's sense of humor, storytelling gift, and now-haunting perspective on life and death, the real order of business. Nobody in the world has seen this material until today, May 12, 2025, 15 years later, when I am reflecting on her life well lived, how much I'll miss her, and how there will never again be anyone like her.
H. Paul Moon
Spring Creek, Nevada
2020 conversation: open.spotify.com/episode/75TyCeZSzMk4ZwgGI7ADJC or podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barbara-heyman/id1473390770?i=1000468112876
Delighted to see Barber's childhood home, still looking great, brings back fond memories of capturing it way back when. Longtime West Chester resident Ulrich Klabunde made this important preservation possible, may he rest in peace.
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If you happen to be in Barber's hometown this weekend, please consider joining me at West Chester Film Festival when I talk about the experience of creating this documentary, and the pertaining issues that apply to telling true stories in nonfiction film. It starts 3:45pm at the Uptown Knauer Performing Arts Center, includes delicious refreshments afterward, a few short films...and then if you can stay for the block afterward, they're screening my new (very!) short film "Beside Myself" (poem by Bob Holman) as a festival nominee at 6pm. Hope to see you there!
www.westchesterfilmfestival.com/pop-ups-and-workshops
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Marin Alsop is surely one of Barber's greatest champions today. Bravo!
Review: Conductor Marin Alsop makes high-octane debut with S.F. Symphony
datebook.sfchronicle.com
Alsop’s first subscription appearance with the orchestra is highlighted by Gabriela Montero’s brilliant Piano Concerto No. 1, with the composer as soloist.1 CommentComment on Facebook
A super intelligent interpreter of Sam B.
Happy Birthday, Samuel Barber! A bit of good news that I'm looking forward to on this day: my latest (very) short film "Beside Myself" is a nominee for Best Art/Experimental Film at the West Chester Film Festival. In tandem with that screening at the Uptown Knauer Performing Arts Center on Saturday, April 26 at 6pm, just beforehand and across the street at the Chester County History Center, I'll sit on a panel of other filmmakers to talk about the road to making this documentary, including my time spent filming right there in Barber's home town: www.westchesterfilmfestival.com/2025schedule
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What we've been saying forever! And while they're at it, The Metropolitan Opera must revive the opera that opened their house altogether, "Antony and Cleopatra." Acolytes like Leonard Slatkin and John Mauceri are eager and ready to deliver this.
At the comments, I wrote: "The writer of this article perhaps hasn't seen my documentary 'Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty,' or digested Barbara Heyman's biography now in its second edition, for further context about the complicated relationship of the Met with the composer who opened its house. There's an anecdote, for example, about how Barber and Menotti got turned away during a backstage visit for another production, and Barber declared, "But I opened this opera house!" He already felt betrayed by the outsized stage ambitions of Zeffirelli's inaugural production and surrounding treatment, complicated by critics who got distracted by the celebrity gala. Sam didn't hold back his thoughts, and management heard. But "Antony and Cleopatra" is a strong work, even in its original edition (compared to Menotti's romanticized revisions for his Spoleto reboot), and that's especially what we should be talking about. We're getting John Adams' own take very soon, but you'll see little reference or reverence to his progenitor: count another forensic of bad blood. Perhaps Barber will need to wait a little longer, for that reason alone; but the general notion in this article is well-taken, that 20th century American composers are long neglected at the Met (actual patrons have bemoaned this for years, so it's hardly a novel comment)."
Why Is an Entire Age of American Opera Missing at the Met? (Gift Article)
www.nytimes.com
A concert performance of “Vanessa” freshly argued for the vitality of a work that deserves to be staged but languishes with its midcentury peers.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
I'm still making films, @followers (and it was nice to see the shout-out to Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty): please enjoy this new freely streaming, feature-length opera! (Would Sam like it? Maybe.)
New Opera Film of Handel's 'Admeto' Makes Premiere - OperaWire
operawire.com
Opera Essentia and H. Paul Moon of Zen Violence Films have released a new opera film of Handel's "Admeto."0 CommentsComment on Facebook
Always a pleasure to see Samuel Barber's "Hermit Songs" original holograph presented by Performing Arts at the Library of Congress in the display case every Founder's Day, especially on this 100th anniversary concert (it was a birthday gift to Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, with Barber playing piano on this stage with Leontyne Price for the world premiere).
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Happy 250th birthday, Caspar David Friedrich! (A short film I made upon visiting his exhibition in Berlin.)
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