Tim Blevins' rise, fall and steps toward recovery are the subject of the extraordinary documentary “Figaro Up, Figaro Down,” which will make its world premiere April 27 at SF Film Fest.
Perhaps you recall having seen Tim Blevins perform at one of the leading opera houses of the world, or maybe you remember seeing him sing famous arias on Market Street outside the Orpheum Theatre.
Blevins was indeed a world-class opera singer, but turned to busking in The City to maintain a tie to his performative past as he struggled with addiction and street life in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. His rise, fall and steps toward recovery are the subject of the extraordinary documentary “Figaro Up, Figaro Down,” which will make its world premiere April 27 at San Francisco’s Marina Theatre during the 69th San Francisco International Film Festival.
San Francisco filmmaker and “Figaro Up, Figaro Down” director Javid Soriano first met Blevins in 2012 while he was walking around Civic Center with his camera and saw him on the street selling knickknacks.
“There were a bunch of people in Civic Center doing the same thing, but he had a crowd around him — you could feel immediately that he’s incredibly charismatic — and he had a couple of interesting things like copies of Opera America, a book about Mozart and sheet music,” Soriano recalled. “We started talking and he talked about Figaro as an opera character but also sort of a street hustler, and this idea of reimagining 19th-century opera in the context of the street just struck me.
” Soriano found it interesting that the setting of his conversation with Blevins was across the street from the War Memorial Opera House, but in a spot where one wouldn’t expect classical music to exist. Soriano said that Blevins, who had studied at Juilliard, was keen on doing a cinematic scene of himself singing Figaro’s famous “Largo al factotum” aria from Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.
” The aria, which roughly translates from the Italian as “make way for the guy who does everything," is one of the more demanding ones for a baritone and introduces the character as a highly confident, energetic and in-demand barber.
“When we finally met up to shoot, there was a completely different side to him,” said Soriano, who agreed to film a short about Blevins called “Factotum of the City” . “He was a different person than the one I saw on the streets who was super confident and assured; he was kind of beat, he was talking about his kids and really missing them, and he was really down, and that took me by surprise.
” Instead of singing Figaro’s buoyant aria for Soriano, Blevins performed Wagner’s famous “O du, mein holder Abendstern” from his opera “Tannhauser,” an aria the character Wolfram sings out of a hope for guidance in a moment of despair.
“It’s about the evening star and hoping the person you love is looking at the same star so you can find your way back to each other,” Soriano said. “We were in an alleyway; he was holding his pet albino rat, Bella, gently and full of feeling, and it was really raw. That was kind of the movie right there. On the one hand, he’s sharp and street smart, tough as nails, and then sensitive and very fragile.
It’s like being with a man in exile trying to find his way home. ” Blevins was already struggling with substance abuse during the height of his career when he sang commanding roles such as Crown in Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. His addictions led to the breakup of his marriage and strained relationships with his daughter and, especially, his son.
Ex // Top Stories SF hands reins of street outreach teams to different agency The Department of Public Health will oversee the groups that attempt to connect people with various social services SF Ballet’s new season to spotlight art form’s legacy, new voices Company’s 94th season features classics such as ‘Nutcracker,’ but also new work by choreographer William Forsythe 'Hamnet' gets Royal Shakespeare Company treatment in SF Before the Oscar-winning film, the play was the thing. Blevins’ troubled odyssey as well as his complex persona made for a compelling story that Soriano wanted to tell in a full-length documentary, and building a relationship based on trust helped pave the way for “Figaro Up, Figaro Down.
” It also attracted the attention of film producer Rob Richert, who knew Soriano from a teaching program.
“I’m really drawn to films that provide stylistically ambitious frameworks to tell humanist stories,” said Richert, who lives in Los Angeles. Originally from Berkeley, he was a co-producer and writer of “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” .
“That’s what drew me the most to the material — I felt Javid’s respect for Tim and Tim’s trust in Javid was unmistakable and that Tim’s story was remarkable and spoke to the inequities in our society right now. ” The documentary took 10 years to make and was a revelatory experience; the production team traveled to Los Angeles, where Tim grew up and his parents lived and where they found out that Tim’s father once struggled with addiction.
Throughout the making of the film, the team also consulted with an adviser on issues of addiction and homelessness.
“I think societally we know, and it's not surprising to learn, when music stars struggle with addiction,” Soriano said. “But it might be surprising to know that it's something that sort of plagues performing artists in classical music, too. ” In the film, Blevins shows his determination to recover from addiction, continue mending ties with his family and maintain a stable life.
“He’s in a different apartment now than the one where we see him at the end of the film,” Soriano said. “He’s taking care of himself, busks outside the Orpheum, has plants he tends to, pays his bills, talks to his kids and sings.
” There is a scene toward the end of the film in which Blevins, who by then is taking steps toward recovery, sings Don Quixote’s iconic aria “The Impossible Dream” from the musical “Man of La Mancha” in a paid appearance for a pop-up concert at the Orpheum Theatre. The song is about fighting a battle that may never be fully winnable but choosing to fight it anyway. It symbolizes what the film is all about, according to Soriano.
“It's about this really difficult task we all struggle with of confronting your demons, knowing they may return, but refusing to stop fighting for a better version of yourself,” Soriano said.
Classical Music Tenderloin District
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