Film and Television Composer Comes Full Circle Scoring Ballet

• Collaboration on ‘The Sea Princess’ Brings Eric Allaman Back to Classical Roots

BY ROBBY MAZZA

Composer Eric Allaman will realize a dream on Friday, May 18. His two-year collaboration with artistic director Kim Maselli, the Pacific Festival Ballet’s choreographer and artistic director, will come to life in a ballet called “The Sea Princess” that will have two performances at the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks.

The ballet, written and choreographed by Maselli, and composed by Allaman, is the story of Ondine, who is turned into a mermaid by an evil sorceress, Poseidenne, who then lures her into the sea. Poseidenne’s spell is broken when Ondine is reunited with her true love, Prince Raphael, and her evil is lost at sea forever. “It’s an 80 minute ballet, that’s basically good versus evil,” said Allaman, “a bit like Swan Lake and a little like the Little Mermaid.”

Allaman, a classically trained pianist, who works out of a small studio on Point Dume, says that variety is the key to being a successful composer and his work certainly proves it. His films have included “Legend,” “Trueheart,” “Elvira’s Haunted Hills,” “Latter Days” and “Breakfast with Einstein.”

He also scores the television program “Extreme Makeover” and has worked on several other shows, including the miniseries “Dante’s Cove,” “Beautiful Girl,” “Mike Hammer Private Eye” and the docudrama “Raven Warrior.” His repertoire includes two operas; “Battleship Potemkin” and “Voices from the Cellar”; theatrical productions “The Geography of Luck,” “Dragon Lady,” and “Stendahl”; as well as several CDs of original music.

Allaman and Maselli met at a party in December 2005. “She asked me if I wanted to do a ballet. I’d always wanted to, but my career wasn’t really going that way, I was more involved in film and television scoring,” he said.

He was familiar with Maselli’s extensive career—she trained at the Joffrey Ballet, and her work includes performances with the American Ballet Theater II under the direction of Richard Englund.

She was a member of the Los Angeles Ballet from 1982 to 1990, was a regular on the television series “Fame,” and has starred in numerous television specials with Mikhail Baryshnikov, as well as the 1982 Emmy Awards.

Maselli has also choreographed work for several television shows, such as “Star Search.” Currently, she trains dancers at the California Dance Theater in Agoura Hills that “feeds” the Pacific Ballet, the resident company of the Civic Arts Plaza.

Maselli wanted the music a year ahead of schedule, but because Allaman was at work scoring a film, he was unable to start until April of 2006.

“I pretty much had an open pallette to do what I wanted to do,” he said. “Kim came to my studio, and we discussed the story line, the dramatic arc of the piece, and the tempos where things should be slow and fast, and then I went to work.” Using an orchestral synthesizer that produces the sound of every instrument from oboes to drums to flutes, he completed the music for “The Sea Princess” in four months.

“There is no way you can make synthesized music sound like an orchestra,” said Allaman, who had recorded scores for films and television in Russia in the past, and wanted a full orchestra for this production. He decided to travel there to record the ballet in October of 2006.

“My decision was financial,” he said. “Here you’ll pay $300 for a player for a three-hour session, in Russia, you'll pay about $25 for a four-hour session. You hate to do it to players here, but it was either record it there or use synthesizers here.”

Using a 65-piece orchestra—the perfect ensemble for a ballet—the music was recorded in about five days at the Documentary Film Studios in St. Petersburg. “It was a phenomenal experience to go realize my ballet in the Mecca of ballets.” said Allaman. “Across the street was the St. Petersburg Music Conservatory, where a litany of great composers like Rimsky-Korsakov and Peter Tchaikovsky studied, and next door was the Mirinsky Theater, which produced some of the great ballets including Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker,” “Swan Lake,” and “Sleeping Beauty.”

He states that the ballet, or for that matter, most classical compositions such as opera, are an incredible amount of work and that the rewards, at least financial, are slim, but that wasn’t why he did it.

“For so many of us that do music for film and T.V., that’s how we survive, few manage it in theater and fewer manage it in the concert world. We compose mostly background music, that’s the beauty of it because it allows the actors to speak, but composition is covered by dialogue or sound,” he said. “In ballet, the music is full frontal and gets maximum exposure, even more so than opera, where singer’s voice is the focus. For a composer, instrumental music is more featured in ballet than in opera.”

“I didn’t do this thinking it would ever make a nickel, that wasn’t my interest,” he stated. "I love dance and I love music, I wanted to write something that could possibly have some longevity to it. You don’t write a ballet thinking it will be a huge financial success. It took a massive amount of time, but I loved it.”

Allaman states that historically ballet has been somewhat of then “ugly stepchild” of classical music. “Operas are not moneymakers, but they are supported by fundraisers that keep them going,” he said. “Ballets, like musical theater, are dead in the water if they don’t make it, that’s why you see productions like “Swan Lake” and “The Nutcracker” done ad nauseum year after year.”

Allaman, who has lived in Malibu since 1991, attended UCLA where he majored in music and theater. After graduating, he decided to go to Paris and write 19th century piano music. “I wanted to make it as a composer writing music that was already 250 years out of style,” he said.

After nearly a year, he hadn’t been able to “get anything going” and was running out of money. He left in search of other opportunities—traveling across Europe on a Unirail pass and shopping his music. He ended up in Berlin. "I didn’t want to go home with my tail between my legs because I failed,” he said, “so a friend loaned me $1000 and said, ‘Do what you have to do.’” Within a week, he was working, playing music on television getting his music on radio and receiving an offer to play in a cabaret.

He started working with the legendary German electronic group Tangerine Dream that is famous for scoring the film “Risky Business” and became involved in synthesized music—techno, which is fast-pasted dance-type music and electronica, more atmospheric and ambient sound. He began writing for the group, scoring the Tom Cruise film, “Legend.” “I realized I could do this, I could write images for pictures and movies,” he said, so he scored a few more films with Tangerine Dream.

At that time he received an offer to score a silent film “The Battleship Potemkin,” which he later based his opera on for the Berlin Film Festival. He received international acclaim and decided to come home to California.

He found that diversity was the key to becoming a successful composer. “You have to be diverse as a composer to survive. You cover so much territory, you can never say you don’t understand a certain genre or style—you won’t survive.”

His scoring style has covered the gamut from retro surf music for the film “High Tide,” to techno electronica for “Latter Days,” to Native American. Although comfortable and proficient in many styles, including electronica, techno, orchestral, solo piano music and guitar music, others have proven to be challenges. Undaunted, he has gone to great measures to conquer the challenges and learn the style.

“I had to really research jazz music for ‘Mike Hammer,’ I’d never done jazz before. Stacy [Keach] loves jazz and “cool school blues,” so I listened to several recordings so I could compose the music for the show.” For “African Sky,” Robert Mitchum’s last series, the directors wanted African music.

Not knowing anything about the sound, he immersed himself and produced the score and for the film “TrueHeart,” the producers wanted Native American music, specifically reminiscent of Northwestern, so he attended powwows and studied the sound. When he was ready to record, he brought Native American singers to the studio and recorded the track.

When he takes a break, Allaman, who grew up in Laguna and is an avid surfer, can be found on his board or with his two sons, Von, 13, and Tristan, 8, whom he has been coaching in Malibu Little League for the past eight years.

“My dream was to come back and surf,” he said. “My story brought me back full circle and I’m within a stone’s throw of where I studied music.”

There will be two performances of “The Sea Princess” on Friday, May 19: at 4 and 7:30 p.m. in the Fred Kavli Theatre at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.californiadance theatre.com.

THE COMPOSER—Eric Allaman had to compose parts for each instrument in the 65-piece orchestra. “I love dance and I love music, I wanted to write something that could possibly have some longevity to it,” he said.


THE DANCERS—At El Matador State Beach, London O’Donnell, in white, as Ondine; and Emiko Flanagan, in red, as Poseidenne. “The Sea Princess will have two performances on May 18 at the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks.