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Press-show of opera “Koriolan“ in terms of Vlad Troitsky project "New Music" at “KPI” Art and Culture Centre, Kyiv, Ukraine
Last night was the opening night of the Met's new season with a gala performance of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. Jane (Fonda), Mary-Louise (Parker), Willem (Dafoe), Barbara (Walters), Walter (Cronkite), Charlie (Rose), Mike (Bloomberg), John (McEnroe), Plácido (Domingo) and many more... they were all there. And so was I ! Alright, alright: the gala crowd was in the opera house and schmucks like me were outside, on the plaza, enjoying the performance with a little breeze and sans chi-chi dresses. Ah, it's good to be frugal.
As part of the Metropolitan Opera’s new initiative to widen the appeal of opera, the Met broadcasted the entire performance in Times Square on a giant screen. The Met also presented a simultaneous outdoor broadcast of the performance in Lincoln Center’s Josie Robertson Plaza. “We want to bring the Met to the heart of New York,” said Peter Gelb, the Met’s new General Manager.“This effort is symbolic of our plans to keep the Met connected to mainstream culture and contemporary life and will help build new audiences. Thousands will have the chance to see and hear our opening night performance who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend.”
To read all about it, check out the MetBlog. Oh yes, those opera people are hip and cool: they have a blog, playlists on iTunes, rush tickets and Figaro who answers all your questions!
NB: on the screen you can see the Times Square opera crowd. The little white spot in the sky is a plane flying above the opera house. And yes, with so much drama, passion and tears, it is a bit blurry.
A view of the Opera House from Circular Quay. The Opera Bar with the white umbrellas is also visible and probably one of my favourite bars in Sydney providing full views of the Harbour Bridge and North Sydney.
It is really hard to believe I've spent 23 years of my life in Sydney without appreciating its beauty until now. I think it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world but London still remains home for me, at least in the foreseeable future.
HDR, 9 exposures, using Photomatix Pro.
I just love the opera house in Oslo! The sunrise usually mirrors in the large glass surfaces...
Panasonic LX3:
1/160 sec - f/2.8 - 55mm - ISO 80
The Sydney Opera House is an expressionist modern design, with a series of large precast concrete 'shells', each taken from a hemisphere of the same radius, forming the roofs of the structure. The Opera House covers 1.8 hectares (4.5 acres) of land. It is 183 metres (605 feet) long and about 120 metres (388 feet) wide at its widest point. It is supported on 580 concrete piers sunk up to 25 metres below sea level. Its power supply is equivalent for a town of 25,000 people. The power is distributed by 645 kilometres of electrical cable.
The roofs of the House are covered with 1.056 million glossy white and matte cream Swedish-made tiles, though from a distance the tiles look only white. Despite their self-cleaning nature, they are still subject to periodic maintenance and replacement.
The Concert Hall and Opera Theatre are each contained in the two largest groups of shells, and the other theatres are located on the sides of the shell groupings. The form of the shells is chosen to reflect the internal height requirements, rising from the low entrance spaces, over the seating areas and up to the high stage towers. A much smaller group of shells set to one side of the Monumental steps and houses the Bennelong Restaurant.
Although the roof structures of the Sydney Opera House are commonly referred to as shells (as they are in this article), they are in fact not shells in a strictly structural sense, but are instead precast concrete panels supported by precast concrete ribs. The building's interior is composed of pink granite quarried in Tarana and wood and brush box plywood supplied from northern New South Wales.
A great suggestion by David Storey - I have added a custom privacy mode Face Gesture - to turn it on and off.
Press-show of opera “Koriolan“ in terms of Vlad Troitsky project "New Music" at “KPI” Art and Culture Centre, Kyiv, Ukraine
An opera on an old deep sea tug: one of the events taking place during the World Port Days in Rotterdam. I thoroughly enjoyed the opera, which is based on a true story, and thought it was a unique show!
For more information on the opera, please visit www.intorno.nl
The Palais Garnier (English: Garnier Palace) is a 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier in recognition of its opulence and its architect, Charles Garnier. The theatre was also often referred to as the Opéra Garnier, the Opéra de Paris or simply the Opéra. It was the primary home of the Paris Opera and its associated Paris Opera Ballet until 1989, when a new 2,700-seat house, the Opéra Bastille, with elaborate facilities for set and production changes, opened at the Place de la Bastille. The Paris Opera now mainly uses the Palais Garnier for ballet.
The Palais Garnier is "probably the most famous opera house in the world, a symbol of Paris like Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, or the Sacré Coeur Basilica." This is at least partly due to its use as the setting for Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera and the novel's subsequent adaptations in films and Andrew Lloyd Webber's popular 1986 musical. Another contributing factor is that among the buildings constructed in Paris during the Second Empire, besides being the most expensive, it has been described as the only one that is "unquestionably a masterpiece of the first rank." This opinion is far from unanimous however: the 20th-century French architect Le Corbusier once described it as "a lying art" and contended that the "Garnier movement is a décor of the grave".
The Palais Garnier also houses the Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra de Paris (Paris Opera Library-Museum). Although the Library-Museum is no longer managed by the Opera and is part of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the museum is included in unaccompanied tours of the Palais Garnier.
Press-show of opera “Koriolan“ in terms of Vlad Troitsky project "New Music" at “KPI” Art and Culture Centre, Kyiv, Ukraine
The Central City Opera House located in the National Historic Landmark District in Central City, Colorado, USA was constructed in 1878 by Welsh and Cornish miners.
In 1877, the citizens of Central City organized a fundraising drive for a grand new opera house befitting the gold mining town's reputation as "the richest square mile on earth." Many of the town's residents were Welsh and Cornish miners, who brought with them a rich tradition of music from their homeland. While locals pitched in during construction, the organizers also retained some of the best building professionals in the area. Denver architect Robert S. Roeschlaub provided an elegant, understated design for the stone structure, and San Francisco artist John C. Massman added elaborate trompe l'oeil murals to the interior. A creek flows through a flume under the Opera House.
The early glory years following the 1878 grand opening were short-lived. Musical and theatrical events appeared on its stage; Buffalo Bill performed here as well as P. T. Barnum’s circus. When the Central City mines were played out, the Opera House fell into disrepair.
In 1929 a dedicated band of Denver preservationists and music lovers formed the Central City Opera House Association and went to work to turn the spotlights back on. A volunteer-driven effort led by Ida Kruse McFarlane, Edna Chappell and Anne Evans led to an extensive restoration of the Opera House in 1932. That summer, actress Lillian Gish opened the newly restored opera house with Camille, launching an annual tradition of summer festivals in Central City that continues to this day.
It appears in the credits of the 1975 cowboy film, Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox as a site used in a scene where actress Goldie Hawn performs a dance routine.
Maintenance of the building again declined after the 1950s. In the 1980s and 1990s, the entire structure from top to below bottom (the foundation and the flume) has been restored, rebuilt, renewed or revamped, including replacement of the 1920-era lighting relic by a computerized lighting system.
In 1999 the wooden chairs were replaced with plush new theater seating. A memorial to the original chairs is on the grounds of the house. Continuing a tradition from 1932, many of the chairs commemorate Colorado pioneers, notable performers, and opera supporters. Illustrious names like Horace Tabor, Buffalo Bill Cody, Beverly Sills, and Lillian Gish are carved on the backs of the seats.
The opera house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973. (from Wikipedia)
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney, Australia, identified as one of the 20th century's most distinctive buildings.
Designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, the building was formally opened on 20 October 1973 after a gestation beginning with Utzon's 1957 selection as winner of an international design competition. The government of New South Wales, led by the premier, Joseph Cahill, authorised work to begin in 1958 with Utzon directing construction. The government's decision to build Utzon's design is often overshadowed by circumstances that followed, including cost and scheduling overruns as well as the architect's ultimate resignation.
The Sydney Opera House became a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007.
The building and its surrounds occupy the whole of Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbour, between Sydney Cove and Farm Cove, adjacent to the Sydney central business district and the Royal Botanic Gardens, and close by the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Though its name suggests a single venue, the building comprises multiple performance venues which together are among the busiest of performing arts centres - hosting well over 1,500 performances annually, attended by more than 1.2 million people. A wide range of performances is presented in the venues, by numerous performing arts producers, including four key resident companies: Opera Australia, The Australian Ballet, the Sydney Theatre Company and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. As one of the most popular visitor attractions in Australia, more than eight million people visit the site each year, with around 350,000 visitors annually taking a guided tour of the building.
The building is managed by the Sydney Opera House Trust, an agency of the New South Wales State Government.
Sydney Opera under construction in 1968 taken from Sydney Harbour. This is the second stage of contruction after the earlier concrete sail collapse. You can see the sun shining through the gaps in the individual sails.
Sydney Opera House, Bennelong Point, New South Wales, April 2016. First planned in the late 1940's, a n architectural competition was won by Jorn Utzon in 1957 (although the geometry of the roof 'sails' wasn't actually worked out). Building work soon followed and after a long and very controversial construction period, which involved a lot of political shenanigans and a redesign by Peter Hall, it was opened in 1973. Now a World Heritage Site.
This is a completed commission for midwinterwriter, who asked me to re-create the 'Mirror' nightgown ensemble worn by Emmy Rossum in the 2004 'Phantom of the Opera' movie.
Here you can see some of the detail on the front of the trained robe, which was made from very lightly teastained cheesecloth and finished with broderie anglaise (both ruffled and straight), peach coloured ribbon, and tiny ribbon flowers.
The rest of the outfit includes a lace split skirt and camisole, and a late Victorian style satin corset.
Press-show of opera “Koriolan“ in terms of Vlad Troitsky project "New Music" at “KPI” Art and Culture Centre, Kyiv, Ukraine
This is a completed commission for midwinterwriter, who asked me to re-create the 'Mirror' nightgown ensemble worn by Emmy Rossum in the 2004 'Phantom of the Opera' movie.
This skirt is made from very lightly teastianed lace with a muslin underlayer to prevent it from becoming entirely transparent.
The rest of the outfit includes a lace camisole, satin corset, and muslin robe.
Opera glasses were made as early as 1730 in the form of a telescope. Binocular opera glasses did not begin to appear until the early 19th century. It was around this time that they began to gain popularity, and by the 1850s they were a fashion accessory that opera and theatre goers had to have. These Mother of Pearl glasses were made around the late 19th century by Colmont in Paris. Colmont was a company that produced military and civilian optical eye-wear during the 19th and 20th centuries.