Part of the Metropolitan Opera is totally free, thanks to Peter Gelb. In his first season, he established the Schwartz Gallery. I worked for the Met Guild at the time and, during the holiday rush, helped in the gift shop. Most of the time, I’d sit at a table next to the gallery selling libretti and CDs for that evening’s performance. The gallery was burgeoning but had a solid exhibition of artwork inspired by the heroines of the 2006-07 season;s new productions (Eurydice, Cio-Cio San…). Old guard audiences didn’t know what to make of it, 20-something passersby who didn’t even have opera tickets stopped in before going to drink hip microbrews in their Brooklyn enclave. The next year, they did multiple exhibitions (including my personal favorite, a photographic retrospective of Philip Glass, all taken by Chuck Close).
Cross-promotions are becoming prevalent and, much like the idea of a co-production, could save companies’ budgets. Especially for marketing and advertising, which are notoriously under-funded. Even the Met could save a couple of bucks, and have teamed up with….The Met. Museum that is. From the Met to the Met displays Anselm Kiefer’s works in relation to The Ring, the Met opera getting some loaners from the museum, the museum getting some West Side (and press) exposure.
I was so happy to read this, however, because I count a similar exhibition at Geneva’s Rath Museum, a retrospective of Wagner in art timed with the Geneva opera’s production of Tannhauser. The museum embraced a multi-media approach, with listening stations arranged in an aural biography of the composer, meanwhile artistic renderings of Tristan und Isolde, Brunnhilde, and, yes, the T-man made for a comprehensive and compelling installation. I was due to see Tannhauser in Budapest a couple of days later, but wound up seeing it in Geneva as well due to the exhibit (in turn, was a total fluke that I had come across the exhibition). Well worth it. Was Wagner a schmuck? Yes. Did he write some heart-stoppingly good music? Yes.
Opera IS a multi-media art form, a factoid that many forget. It was conceived in Renaissance Italy as a perfect marriage of words and music. One could also argue that Wagner helped to perfect the visual component with his demand for theatricality. I hope these sorts of team-ups are a trend on the rise for companies on this side of the pond.
Filed under: multimedia, music | Leave a Comment
Tags: metropolitan opera, metropolitan museum of art, philip glass, peter gelb, schwartz gallery, rath museum, geneva, new york, wagner, chuck close, anselm kiefer, the ring, cross-promotion
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