Metropolitan Opera’s Gallery Met Short for Roméo et Juliette

Summary: The Metropolitan Opera’s Gallery Met Short for Roméo et Juliette is sixth in a series linking visual artists with current season operas.

Alexandra Marzella as Juliette, costumed by Marc Jacobs, in the Metropolitan Opera's Gallery Met Short of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette by Rachel Feinstein: Marc Jacobs @marcjacobsintl, via Facebook Jan. 24, 2017

The Metropolitan Opera’s Gallery Met Short for Roméo et Juliette by 19th century composer Charles Gounod is sixth in a series of short films produced by Gallery Met director Dodie Kazanjian with the aim of linking original visual artworks with current season operas.

Rachel Feinstein debuts as Gallery Met Shorts’ sixth visual artist with her original visual artwork treating Roméo et Juliette by French composer Charles-François Gounod (June 17, 1818-Oct. 18, 1893). She was born May 25, 1971, in Fort Defiance, Apache County, northeastern Arizona. She is known for her fanciful sculptures and for her fashion sense.

Feinstein’s short film has a run time of 2 minutes 31 seconds. Five vignettes capture the drama of the opera’s five acts. The Gallery Met Short excerpts the opening music for the opera’s second act from Metropolitan Opera’s Dec. 15, 2007, performance of Roméo et Juliette.

New York-based models Alexandra Marzella and Michael Bailey-Gates appear as Juliette and Roméo in the Roméo et Juliette Gallery Met Short. Juliette's costumes are by American fashion designer Marc Jacobs (born April 9, 1963).

The Gallery Met Short for Roméo et Juliette debuted during the 2016-2017 Met Opera season. Feinstein’s original visual artwork was first seen during the Live in HD broadcast of Metropolitan Opera’s Jan. 21, 2017, matinee performance.

Feinstein’s short film finds relevance to Met Opera’s current season. The Metropolitan Opera presents Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette as the last of the 26 productions performed for the 2017-2018 Met Opera season. Six performances are scheduled.

Opening night is Monday, April 23, 2018, at 7:30 p.m. EDT (Eastern Daylight Time). April’s second performance takes place Friday, April 27, at 8 p.m.

Four performances are scheduled for May. Performances at 7:30 p.m. take place Tuesday, May 1, and Wednesday, May 9. Saturday, May 5’s performance is at 1 p.m. Roméo et Juliette’s final performance, Saturday, May 12, at 1 p.m. closes the 2017-2018 Met Opera season.

In addition to Rachel Feinstein’s Roméo et Juliette, another Gallery Met Short pertains to the 2017-2018 Met Opera season. Seattle-born visual artist Thomas John “T.J.” Wilcox’s original visual artwork on The Tales of Hoffmann debuted Jan. 31, 2015, as third in the Gallery Met Short series. The 2017-2018 Met Opera season revisits Les Contes d’Hoffmann by German-born French composer Jacques Offenbach (June 20, 1819-Oct. 5, 1880), with nine performances between Tuesday, Sept. 26, and Saturday, Oct. 28.

Dodie Kazanjian conceived the Gallery Met Short series as an expansion of the connection between Metropolitan Opera House’s Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met and Met Opera season productions. Located in the Metropolitan Opera’s south lobby, Gallery Met celebrates the opera house’s storied relationships with such major visual artists as Russian-French artist Marc Chagall (July 7, 1887-March 28, 1985) and English painter and stage designer David Hockney (born July 9, 1937).

She explains to Broadway World’s Opera News Desk: “The idea was to connect contemporary art and artists more directly with what happens onstage at the Metropolitan Opera.”

Kazanjian launches the Gallery Met Short series with original artwork by Italian satirical sculptor Maurizio Cattelan (born Sept. 21, 1960) and Italian photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari. Their treatment of the Act I finale of Macbeth by Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi (Oct. 10, 1813-Jan. 27, 1901) was originally seen during the Live in HD broadcast of Oct. 11, 2014.

The takeaway for the Metropolitan Opera’s Gallery Met Short for Roméo et Juliette is that the sixth short film in a series produced by Gallery Met director Dodie Kazanjian links Arizona-born sculptor Rachel Feinstein’s original artwork with 19th century French composer Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. Gounod’s Shakespeare-based, romantic tragedy is presented in April and May 2018 as the last of the 2017-2018 Met Opera season’s 26 productions.

American artist and baroque, fantasy-inspired sculptor Rachel Feinstein (born May 25, 1971) and her husband, American painter John Currin (born 1962), model Fall 2015 Campaign by American fashion designer Marc Jacobs (born April 9, 1963), as photographed by British fashion designer David Sims (born Dec. 30, 1966): Marc Jacobs, via Facebook July 6, 2015

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Alexandra Marzella as Juliette, costumed by Marc Jacobs, in the Metropolitan Opera's Gallery Met Short of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette by Rachel Feinstein: Marc Jacobs @marcjacobsintl via Facebook Jan. 24, 2017, @ https://www.facebook.com/marcjacobsintl/videos/1573087612706773/

American artist and baroque, fantasy-inspired sculptor Rachel Feinstein (born May 25, 1971) and her husband, American painter John Currin (born 1962), model Fall 2015 Campaign by American fashion designer Marc Jacobs (born April 9, 1963), as photographed by British fashion designer David Sims (born Dec. 30, 1966): Marc Jacobs, via Facebook July 6, 2015, @ https://www.facebook.com/marcjacobsintl/posts/1128809357134603/; via Facebook July 6, 2015, @ https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1128809357134603&set=a.1125647417450797; via Facebook July 6, 2015, @ https://www.facebook.com/marcjacobsintl/photos/rachel-feinstein-and-john-currin-marc-jacobs-fall-15-campaign-photographed-by-da/1128809357134603/

For further information:

“Gallery Met Shorts.” The Metropolitan Opera > Exhibitions.
Available @ http://www.metopera.org/Visit/Exhibitions/Gallery-Met-Shorts/

Marc Jacobs @marcjacobs. “Watch artist Rachel Feinstein’s new short film, Roméo et Juliette, featuring Marc Jacobs.” Twitter. Jan. 24, 2017.
Available @ https://twitter.com/marcjacobs/status/823940827617652736

Marc Jacobs @marcjacobsintl. "Watch artist Rachel Feinstein's new short film, Roméo et Juliette, featuring Marc Jacobs." Facebook. Jan. 24, 2017.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/marcjacobsintl/videos/1573087612706773/

Marriner, Derdriu. “2017-2018 Met Opera Season Opens Sept. 25 With Bellini’s Norma.” Earth and Space News. Monday, Sept. 18, 2017.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/09/2017-2018-met-opera-season-opens-sept.html

Marriner, Derdriu. “Metropolitan Opera’s Gallery Met Short for The Tales of Hoffmann.” Earth and Space News. Monday, Sept. 11, 2017.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/09/metropolitan-operas-gallery-met-short.html

Metropolitan Opera. “Gallery Met Shorts: Macbeth.” YouTube. Oct. 3, 2014.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_i-4yVm-w

Metropolitan Opera. “Gallery Met Shorts: Roméo et Juliette.” YouTube. Jan. 21, 2017.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCw-p6qY7H4

Opera News Desk. “The Met’s Gallery Met Shorts Series to Launch 10/11 With Macbeth.” Broadway World > Broadway World Opera. Oct. 3, 2014.
Available @ http://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwopera/article/The-Mets-Gallery-Met-Shorts-Series-to-Launch-1011-with-MACBETH-20141003

Wisniewski, John. "'Folly,' a powdered-aluminum sculpture of a flying ship moored high in a tree by American artist Rachel Feinstein, Madison Square Park, New York City." Flickr. May 16, 2014.
Available via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/johngonefishing/14220365133/

Metropolitan Opera’s Gallery Met Short for The Tales of Hoffmann

Summary: The Metropolitan Opera’s Gallery Met Short for The Tales of Hoffmann is third in a series that links visual artists with current season operas.

Italian operatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo and American soprano Erin Morley reprise their 2014-2015 Met Opera season roles as Hoffmann and Olympia, respectively, for the 2017-2018 Met Opera season's production of Jacques Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann: The Metropolitan Opera (metopera), via Instagram June 16, 2017

The Metropolitan Opera’s Gallery Met Short for The Tales of Hoffmann is third in a series of short films produced by Gallery Met director Dodie Kazanjian to link original visual artworks with current season operas.

Dodie Kazanjian describes the series as expanding the connection of the Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met, located in the Metropolitan Opera House’s south lobby, with the opera company’s offerings. She tells Broadway World’s Opera News Desk: “The idea was to connect contemporary art and artists more directly with what happens onstage at the Metropolitan Opera.”

T.J. Wilcox’s short film is an original visual artwork treating Les Contes d’Hoffmann by German-born French composer Jacques Offenbach (June 20, 1819-Oct. 5, 1880). His Gallery Met Short was launched Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015, during the intermission of a live performance of Offenbach’s final opera for the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series.

The run time for Wilcox’s Gallery Met Short is 2 minutes 32 seconds. The film incorporates collages into 16-millimeter film.

Literary influences for Wilcox's take on The Tales of Hoffmann include stories by Prussian Romantic fantasy author Ernest Theodor Amadeus "E.T.A." Hoffmann (Jan. 24, 1776-June 25, 1822) and Das Umheimliche ("The Uncanny"), a 1919 essay by Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (May 6, 1856-Sept. 23, 1939). In addition to Offenbach's opera, Wilcox also credits the 1951 film adaptation by British film director Michael Powell (Sept. 30, 1905-Feb. 19, 1990) and Hungarian British film director Emeric Pressburger (Dec. 5, 1902-Feb. 5, 1988).

Thomas John “T.J.” Wilcox was born in Seattle, King County, northwestern Washington, in 1965. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree in 1989 from New York’s School of Visual Arts. Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, awarded him a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in 1995.

He credits growing up in Seattle, “in the faraway Northwest,” for his tendency toward Europhilia. He explains to Berlin-based art and literary critic Daniel Schreiber: “People speak about Seattle often as the edge of the earth. It was one of the last places settled by Europeans.”

Wilcox exhibited his first film, The Escape (of Marie Antoinette) in 1996 at Gavin Brown Gallery, then located in New York City’s west SoHo neighborhood. The Whitney Museum of American Art accepted the short, 12-minute film for display in the New York Whitney Biennial in 1998.

He regards Marie Antoinette’s seeming disconnect from reality as exemplifying artists’ attempts to make sense of the world by pursuing fantasies. He explains to American visual artist Anne Collier: “Things drag in their wake a lot of other histories beyond the marquee ones they most commonly represent.”

Les Contes d’Hoffmann returns as the second of 26 productions staged during the 2017-2018 Met Opera season. Nine performances are offered in September and October. Opening night is Tuesday, Sept. 26, at 7:30 p.m. EDT (Eastern Daylight Time). The month’s second performance is Saturday, Sept. 30, at 12 p.m.

Seven performances are scheduled for October. October’s performances are given on Wednesday, Oct. 4, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Oct. 7, and Friday Oct. 13, at 8 p.m.; Wednesday, Oct. 18, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Oct. 21, at 12 p.m.; Tuesday, Oct. 24, at 7:30 p.m. The production closes with Saturday, Oct. 28’s performance at 12 p.m.

German conductor Johannes Debus conducts all nine performances. Italian operatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo and American soprano Erin Morley reprise their respective roles of unlucky poet E.T.A Hoffmann and Olympia the mechanical doll from January 2015’s Live in HD staging.

The season’s production revives staging directed by Bartlett Sher. The American theater director’s new production, which was used for the January 2015 Live in HD broadcast, debuted Dec. 3, 2009.

The takeaway for the Metropolitan Opera’s Gallery Met Short for The Tales of Hoffmann is that the third installment in a short film series links Seattle-born visual artist T.J. Wilcox’s original artwork with 19th century French composer Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann. Offenbach’s fantasy opera is revived as the second of the 2017-2018 Met Opera season’s 26 production.

New York City-based artist T.J. Wilcox preceded his Metropolitan Opera Met Gallery short of Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann with In the Air, a cinema-in-the-round panorama of Manhattan viewed from his Union Square penthouse studio exhibited Sep 19, 2013-Feb 9, 2014, at New York's Whitney Museum: Whitney Museum of American Art @whitneymuseum, via Facebook Sep. 15, 2013

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Italian operatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo and American soprano Erin Morley reprise their 2014-2015 Met Opera season roles as Hoffmann and Olympia, respectively, for the 2017-2018 Met Opera season's production of Jacques Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann: The Metropolitan Opera (metopera), via Instagram June 16, 2017, @ https://www.instagram.com/p/BVapVulHzU-/

New York City-based artist T.J. Wilcox preceded his Metropolitan Opera Met Gallery short of Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann with In the Air, a cinema-in-the-round panorama of Manhattan viewed from his Union Square penthouse studio exhibited Sep 19, 2013-Feb 9, 2014, at New York's Whitney Museum: Whitney Museum of American Art @whitneymuseum, via Facebook Sep. 15, 2013, @ https://www.facebook.com/whitneymuseum/photos/a.75036141432/10151584316436433/

For further information:

Collier, Anne. “T.J. Wilcox.” Bomb Magazine > Artists in Conversation. Spring 2010.
Available @ http://bombmagazine.org/article/3453/t-j-wilcox

Colombo, Erica. “T.J. Wilcox. Galleria Raffaella Cortese > Press Release. 2014.
Available @ http://www.galleriaraffaellacortese.com/index.cfm?box=news&azione=view_plus&idnews=315&id=116

“Gallery Met Shorts.” The Metropolitan Opera > Visit > Exhibitions.
Available @ http://www.metopera.org/Visit/Exhibitions/Gallery-Met-Shorts/

Metropolitan Opera. “Gallery Met Shorts: The Tales of Hoffmann.” YouTube. Jan. 31, 2015.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=octAIvECKjY

Metropolitan Opera. “Les Contes d’Hoffmann Trailer.” YouTube. Jan. 16, 2016.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC2XEKs45hU

Opera News Desk. “The Met’s Gallery Met Shorts Series to Launch 10/11 With Macbeth.” Broadway World > Broadway World Opera. Oct. 3, 2014.
Available @ http://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwopera/article/The-Mets-Gallery-Met-Shorts-Series-to-Launch-1011-with-MACBETH-20141003

Peyton, Elizabeth. “T.J. Wilcox.” Interview Magazine > Art. Sept. 18, 2013.
Available @ http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/tj-wilcox

Schreiber, Daniel. “The Collector of Sad and Beautiful Stories: An Encounter with T.J. Wilcox in New York.” Deutsche Bank ArtMag, issue 50. Deutsche Bank ArtMag > Archive > 2008.
Available @ http://db-artmag.com/archiv/2008/e/5/2/630.html

"T.J. Wilcox.” Art Production Fund > Artists.
Available @ http://www.artproductionfund.org/artists/tj-wilcox

Whitney Museum of American Art @whitneymuseum. "VIDEO: Artist T. J. Wilcox discusses the influence of New York City on his new video installation, In the Air, which opens September 19. http://bit.ly/166ofw7." Facebook. Sept. 15, 2013.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/whitneymuseum/photos/a.75036141432/10151584316436433/