Dracula, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Monday 28 May 2012

If nothing else it was a serious treat to watch Dracula – the vintage 1931 Universal Studios' version, of course – on a huge screen in an auditorium full of giggling, cringing viewers.

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Kate Molleson

These days Tod Browning's early talkie comes across more hilarious than horror: the ludicrous rubbery bats, the shameless overacting, the downright bizarre close-ups of Bela Lugosi's Count Dracula, brows arched and one eye bulging with phoney derangement -

Whether or not Philip Glass's score adds to the experience is a matter of opinion. Browning's film has no score, so Glass's contribution doesn't actively displace any part of the original (unlike, for example, his rescoring of Cocteau's La Belle et la Bete). The priceless dialogue becomes tricky to hear, and gone are the eerie silences and quaint early Hollywood sound effects – all layered over by a typical Glass sound world of chunky rotating arpeggios and ominous pedal notes. There's a new atmosphere of sorts, but it's Glass's atmosphere – not Dracula's, not Browning's. The score is light years more chromatic and texturally inventive than the composer's obnoxiously pallid Sixth Symphony, whose UK premiere we heard from BBC SSO the previous evening. Glass's music has always worked best as a support-vehicle for drama, be it the breakthrough early opera Einstein on the Beach or the bland soundtrack of Stephen Dauldry's film The Hours. This performance itself could hardly be faulted; Glass was in town for his 75th birthday celebrations and took to the stage alongside the ever-cool Kronos Quartet and conductor Michael Reisman. Personally I find the spectacle of him plonking out single notes on a synthesiser indescribably underwhelming. But that, again, is a matter of opinion. HHH

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Dracula, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

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