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By Matthew Westphal
07 May 2007
The Metropolitan Opera has raised $1.8 million to support new productions with the "Art for Opera" auction held yesterday evening on the stage of the opera house, according to the Associated Press.
The occasion began with cocktails and dinner amidst Allen Moyer's set for the new staging of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, directed by Mark Morris, which is currently running at the Met. Soprano Maija Kovalevska, the production's Euridice, sang for the guests, as did tenor Salvatore Licitra, who is singing Luigi in Il tabarro, part of the Met's new Puccini Trittico.
Among the works up for auction, as reported by the AP, were: a stylized video diptych by artist/opera director Robert Wilson of soprano Renée Fleming as Massenet's Thaïs (which sold for $130,000); another portrait of Fleming, this time in casual clothes, made by Chuck Close using a cotton tapestry technique (versions went for $70,000 and $80,000); a series of four Polaroids by William Wegman, including one of a pair of his Weimaraners in costumes for next season's Hansel und Gretel ($50,000); and an ink-on-paper drawing by artist William Kentridge, who will direct Shostakovich's The Nose at the Met in 2010, of a bird-catcher — presumably inspired by Papageno in Mozart's Magic Flute, Kentridge's staging of which was recently seen at the Brooklyn Academy of Music ($110,000).
Other works were provided by artists John Chamberlain, George Condo, Barnaby Furnas, Guillermo Kuitca, Richard Prince, David Salle, Cindy Sherman and Sophie von Hellerman.
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