Introduction
"L'Opera sauvage" is
a documentary series exploring the relation between man, music and the animals
from all over the world. It is one of the major productions
Frédéric Rossif ever
made for television and it took him the second half of the seventies to produce
the entire series of 21 episodes! Not that much is known about L'Opera Sauvage
as unfortunately few recordings of the original broadcasts are known today...
Many episodes seem to cover a specific country or region, some of them visit
exotic locations such as Peru, Venezuela, India, Ireland, Greece, Bali,
Singapore, Zimbabwe, Cameroun and Indonesia. A shortened
version of L'opera sauvage has also been broadcast in Germany on Bayerischen
Rundfunk, named "Tiere
und Mythen".
Other wildlife documentary series and films by Frédéric Rossif
that Vangelis provided a musical score for include "L'Apocalypse
des animaux" (1971), "La Fête
Sauvage" (1976) and
"Sauvage et Beau" (1984).
Some of the music that Vangelis made for the TV-series has been
officially released on the album "Opera Sauvage",
which includes well-known themes such as "Hymne", "Rêve" and "L'enfant", but
those form only a fraction of the hours and hours of music that must have been
made for the series. Unfortunately, most music made for "L'Opera Sauvage"
remains unreleased to this day...
Details and Credits
"L'Opera
sauvage" (France, 1975 - 1979)
16 mm color
Broadcast in France late 70's to early 80s on Antenne 2
Length: 21 episodes of about 52 minutes each
Directed by Frédéric Rossif
Music by Vangelis Papathanassiou
Text by Madeleine Chapsal
Dialog by Francois Billetdoux
Cinematography: Bernard Zitzermann
Sound engineer: Harrick Maury
Montage: Marie Sophie Dubus
Producer: Michelle Wiart
Assistent producer: Jean-Charles Cuttoli
Produced by Télé Hachette
Media
The episodes of "L'opera sauvage" have only been broadcast on
television, unfortunately no official release of the series exists.
Frédéric Rossif on the set of L'Opera Sauvage
Movements