Manish Vora
After passing a large Kehinde Wiley piece, I run into Terrence Koh and Stacy Engman, contemporary art chair at the National Arts Club. Earlier in the evening, I saw Lou Reed, Anthony McCall, Nick Mauss, Bruce High Quality Foundation, and Jim Jarmusch. I am not at Sean Kelly, the Brooklyn Museum, or the Armory Show. This is the City Opera at Lincoln Center, and I am at an opera called Monodramas.
It is not just the art world people that confound me but also the art on display from Isaac Julien, Pipilotti Rist, and Dash Snow. And I am not the only one taken by surprise: I overhear a companion of one of the night’s composers, John Zorn, saying that this is the youngest opera crowd he has ever seen. If Broadway has gotten old, then the opera could be described as pre-historic. The last few times I attended the Metropolitian Opera, I estimated that roughly five percent of the crowd was under 45. Tonight, it could have been three times that number. Digital screens with translations, wine and beer, lower priced tickets… are they helping? Will the opera even exist when the baby boomers are gone?
As I travel through the three acts of Monodramas, I felt as if I had attended a dance show at The Joyce, a new media installation at MoMA, and a new-media performance at the Guggenheim. I walk out of this so-called Opera House and declare it the first performance art museum in the world.
On the subway home to Williamsburg, I open up the playbill and read a letter from City Opera Chairman Charles R. Wall that included “This spring, New York City Opera celebrates its role as one of America’s most forward-looking opera companies” and we are “building on our core mission to broaden audiences for opera.” Then I reflected on how young I felt in that audience and how old I sometimes feel at art openings. This is when I dialed up the City Opera and had the following chat.
“Music, art, design, and dance collide in this triple-bill of cutting edge one-act operas” – who is behind the City Opera’s goal of being cutting edge?
Monodramas, conceived by New York City Opera’s General Manager and Artistic Director George Steel, was designed and directed by installation and visual artist Michael Counts. Mr. Counts treated the theater as a site-specific location; his vision for uniting these three operas began with him sitting in the theater for hours listening to each score, sketching and visualizing its design.
Mr. Steel is constantly looking for fresh ways to inspire new audiences with opera. His mission to collaborate not only with visual art but with all artistic media is part of his concerted effort to break barriers and broaden audiences. Opera fuses artists from every discipline to redefine what it is and what it can be: City Opera serves as the meeting place for the art and artists.
And who is behind the new vision?
This new vision of what opera can be is a central part of the vision of George Steel. This past year, in an attempt to maximize all that opera can offer visually, musically, and dramatically, George Steel developed New York City Opera’s Artistic Committee, which is a way to connect City Opera with artists at the forefront of many disciplines. NYCO believes that opera will be immeasurably enriched when it finds ways to connect with other artistic disciplines. Our Artistic Committee is there to lend unique ideas to the artistic leadership of NYCO and to bring City Opera into their daily conversations. The committee will work with the company to move City Opera to the center of the cultural conversation.
Some members of the artistic committee include: Kehinde Wiley, Elizabeth Diller, Isabel and Ruben Toledo, Amy Cappellazzo, and Jennifer Rubell.
Who is curating the art on the walls? How does it play into the overall feel of the City Opera?
The art exhibit currently hanging in the Promenade is an extension of a central part of City Opera’s new identity, which connects each opera and the season as a whole with a single contemporary art image. The exhibition explores more widely the output of the artists whose work is a part of the season. The curator of the art exhibit, titled Parallel Perceptions, is Naomi Ben-Shahar, an accomplished artist and photo editor. Each season, the images offer a fresh perspective on our interpretation of opera’s most archetypal characters and themes, specifically linked to our productions.
Is the City Opera really becoming the first ever performance art museum?
City Opera aims to create any and all types of art, from operatic, to visual, to performance. Art is not just created inside a theater or a museum; it is present everywhere. We welcome the notion of being a performance art museum, as we are here to serve the New York City artistic and cultural community as a whole.
How does opera feel about the term “performance art?”
Opera is the original performance art. New York City Opera embraces performance art, along with all other artistic genres. Opera is the environment in which all these arts can interact.
How did Jennifer Steinkamp get involved with Monodramas?
The idea to work with Jennifer’s art came out of a conversation between George Steel and Artistic Committee member Amy Cappellazzo. George had phoned her to solicit several ideas for artists to work with on the Monodramas production.
Can the general public see the fine art when the opera is not in session?
City Opera is offering free public viewing hours of Parallel Perceptions in the theater, taking place every Tuesday from 1-6pm, and Sunday from 5-8 p.m. throughout the duration of the spring season (March 22 – May 1).
