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By Matthew Westphal
01 May 2007
New productions at the Metropolitan Opera — such as the Orfeo ed Euridice by director/choreographer Mark Morris which opens tomorrow — call for serious, thoughtful art and design work.
To support future new productions at the Met, the company is presenting an "Art for Opera" auction, to be held on the opera house's stage this Sunday, May 6.
An impressive roster of artists have made works available for this event: John Chamberlain, Chuck Close, George Condo, Barnaby Furnas, Guillermo Kuitca, Richard Prince, David Salle, Cindy Sherman, Sophie von Hellerman and William Wegman — as well as two men who have made names for themselves as both visual artists and opera directors, William Kentridge and Robert Wilson.
A number of these artists have created works especially for this occasion; two of them, Close and Wilson, have made original portraits of one of the Met's reigning stars, soprano Renée Fleming. (An image of Wilson's diptych Renée Fleming: Meditation of Thaïs is reproduced below.)
Dodie Kazanjian, the director of the Arnold & Marie Schwartz Gallery Met, has organized the event; she and Met board members Susan Braddock and Donna Rosen are serving as co-chairs. Guest auctioneer for the event will be Jamie Niven, vice-chairman of Sotheby's.
"This auction is another example of the amazing generosity and interest on the part of contemporary artists towards the Met's exciting new program," says Ms. Kazanjian. "In this era of increasing cross-pollination among all the arts, we are especially grateful to this group of artists, and to their dealers, for being so supportive of the Met's initiative."
All of the pieces for auction at "Art for Opera" are on view to the public in Gallery Met from through May 2. The event itself begins with cocktails at 6 p.m. on Sunday, May 6; tickets are $750 and $1250. For more information, call 1-212-870-7441.
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