we went to the performance of richard einhorn's voices of light, the oratorio accompanying carl dreyer's silent film: the passion of joan of arc. (i don't like to put it the other way round. after all the film inspired the libretto.) lim yau conducted the philharmonic choir and orchestra. and soloists from two early music groups performed with them. after a taste of mark chan and the scoring of little toys, i was greatly looking forward to a performance of this sort. and it was better than i expected, if better is not too flimsy a word. i've never seen a movie by carl dreyer, and haven't, for that matter, seen many silent films before, and this was stark and unnerving and clenchingly powerful. renee falconetti as joan startled and awed me. it also made me decide to sit down to reread bernard shaw's st joan, which i had read quickly once before, back when i was relief teaching at serangoon secondary, because that was their set text, and i thought i would have to teach it, although i ended up subbing mostly for compo writing and otherwise making up my own lit assignments and only got one shaw class with the kids. i suppose i had shaw's joan very much on my mind when i was watching this, supplying dialogue and context, although the austerity of dreyer's film was itself intensely moving. i should like to get hold of the einhorn piece on cd too.