Handel Unleashed: Tilda Swinton Directs Dog Opera

Don’t worry, the dogs don’t sing.

Get ready to howl!

Actress Tilda Swinton has extended her creativity chops with an unusual opera arrangement featuring her dogs. Filmed on the coast of Scotland, the music video is surprisingly effective, though it does offer an unavoidable hint of goofiness.

Don’t worry, the dogs don’t sing. Swinton’s springer spaniels run through the sand, gambol in the water, wrestle, leap and jockey for position as someone off-camera apparently prepares to throw a ball. With the aid of photographic tricks, the dogs appear to move in some kind of harmony, and sometimes symmetry.

The music is George Frideric Handel’s “Rompo i Lacci” from “Flavio” (1723), sung by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Swinton co-directed the video with Sandro Kopp for multimedia company Visionaire’s Glass Handel project. The video will be part of an hour-long “live interdisciplinary installation” that will debut at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in Manhattan in late November.

Check it out above.

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