Opera I

Emulating Artists’ Lives

Emulation isn’t just about style or maniera, but also about looking to artists of the past for the kinds of things they engaged in, emulating their careers as much as their art, learning from how they juggled and interwove disparate disciplines. Disegno—meaning both drawing and design—was the thing that allowed painters to become architects, architects to design figurative buildings, and everyone to collaborate in that greatest of all collaborative exercises: opera.

As I’ve said previously, there is seemingly little space for real classicism in the visual arts today; but in the Early Music world there are legions of wonderfully accomplished performers and impresarios who are making beautiful music live again. I’m thrilled to be working with some of those people, the Haymarket Opera Company of Chicago, on designing sets for their upcoming performance of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphèe aux Enfers:

http://haymarketopera.org/events.html

As we develop the sets I'll say more about periaktoi, illusion, and narrative scenography.....