Hercules vs Vampires at The United Theatre

Composer Patrick Morganelli holds degrees in music from both California State University Northridge and the USC Thornton School of Music where he studied piano with Daniel Pollack and Composition with Frederick Lesemann and Tamar Diesendruck, graduating with distinction. He also holds a postgraduate certificate in Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television from USC, where he was the first recipient of the prestigious Joe Harnell Memorial Scholarship. Mr. Morganelli composed the music and adapted the text for Hercules vs. Vampires, which had its premiere in Portland at Opera Theater Oregon in 2010. Critics have lauded Mr. Morganelli’s work in film and television as being uniquely evocative and haunting in a way that persists long after the music has ended. He has worked with filmmakers such as Academy Award nominee Randall Wallace and composers Christopher Young and Michael Giacchino. He has been Artist-in-Residence at the Yosemite Conservancy and was featured on the California State University San Bernardino Distinguished Artist Series. In addition to his work in film, television and opera, he also is active in the world of concert music, with commissions including a violin concerto, a large work for solo piano and the song cycle Songs of Late Summer for mezzo-soprano and orchestra. He lives and works in Los Angeles

The son of cinematographer/special effects designer Eugenio Bava, Mario Bava began his film career in the 1930s, initally assisting his father and then branching off as a distinguished cinematographer in his own right. By the 1950s, Bava's innovative lighting techniques and his genius at creating realistic special effects on a shoestring budget cemented him as one of Italy's top film technicians. Hired by his friend, director Riccardo Freda, to provide the lighting and special effects for I Vampiri (1956, aka The Devil's Commandment), he ended up directing half of the film in a mere two days after Freda had a disagreement with the producers. Historically significant as the first Italian horror film of the sound era, the film was a commercial flop. It was Freda's contention that Italian audiences didn't like the idea of an Italian horror film, so he hid behind the psuedonym Robert Hampton when he directed the tongue-in-cheek Caltiki: Il Mostro Immortale (1959, aka Caltiki: The Immortal Monster). Once again, Bava (credited as John Foam, "foam" being the English translation of "bava") was called upon to complete the film, which he also lit and provided the gruesome special effects for, when Freda walked. As a result of rescuing yet another troubled production, Jacques Tourneur's spectacle The Giant of Marathon (1959), Bava was given the opportunity of directing any film he chose, so long as it didn't cost too much money. Inspired by the recent success of Terence Fisher's Hammer production of Dracula (1958, aka Horror of Dracula) with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, Bava decided to make a horror film of his own. The result was La Maschera del Demonio (1960, aka Black Sunday / Mask of Satan), a film that stood as a perfect synthesis of the Germanic expressionism of the silent era horror films (and its imitative Universal cycle in the 30s and 40s), and the more emboldened expression of violence and sensuality of the Hammer films—this aspect, combined with Bava's peculiar sense of irony and dark imagination, helped to make La Maschera into a worldwide success with audiences and critics.