Handel's Last Chance
In
1742, James (Tod Fennell), a Dublin street kid, is enrolled by his
desperate mother (Seana McKenna) in an upper-crust school. James feels
like an outsider, but things begin to improve when he is selected as a
principal choirboy for Handel's oratorio "The Messiah". In the course
of events, James is befriended by the renowned composer, who suffers
from a temporary lack of self-esteem. When the boy is falsely accused
of wrongdoing, Handel (Leon Pownall) comes to his rescue. The Messiah's
premiere brings Handel glory and restores him to his rightful place in
the musical world.
Featuring music from The Messiah and selections from The Royal Fireworks Music and Water Music.
THE FILMING OF HANDEL'S LAST CHANCE
The fourth of the "Composer's Specials" was filmed entirely on location in the Czech and Slovak Republics, primarily in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, and in the Czech town of Cerveny Kamen.
When David Devine and Richard Mozer were scouting locations for "Handel's Last Chance"--most of which would, in viewers' minds, occur in one place: St. Patrick's Cathedral and its adjacent boys' school--they knew they couldn't shoot it all in bustling Bratislava. Even though the city's St. Martin's Cathedral could pass, with work by Cameron Porteous, for St. Patrick's in Dublin, and the street exteriors would also suffice, the producers had to look elsewhere for a location that would work as the interior of the boys' school, its laundry and dormitory, the jail and Handel's house. These they found at Cernevy Kamen, a 16th-century fortified castle whose noblemen first cultivated today's world-class Bohemian vineyards. Under the direction of Milan Cheylov, filming began here, and after five days of shooting the cast and crew reconvened in Bratislava.
"St. Martin's Cathedral offered the only large-scale, original Gothic construction that we needed," says Mozer, "but it happens to be run by a cleric who's, shall we say, absent minded--not unlike our Dean Swift, actually. Just as Handel was frustrated by Dean Swift, we were frustrated by this guy, who kept changing his mind about where we could shoot--or even if we could shoot. Contracts didn't matter." Mozer and Devine had to revise their schedule four times, and even though they cleared with the Archbishop that Mass could be postponed on crucial filming days, they eventually had to shoot around two Masses per day. "It was mind-boggling," Mozer recalls. "You could start shooting, not knowing if they would say, 'We don't want you here tomorrow'." Cheylov, Devine and Mozer remained as flexible as possible, shooting outside along an adjacent street of seminaries, which served on film as the flea market and the laneways where Jamie is arrested. (As it turned out, Mozer decided to use this area again when directing "Liszt's Rhapsody", the fifth of the Composers' Specials.)
Despite these obstacles, "Handel's Last Chance" was wrapped on schedule after 13 days of filming.
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