Rendering Opera

Gaetano Donizetti
Autograph Score with Vocal Line
1827
ink on paper
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario

Anonymous Photographer
Scene at the Opera in New York
ca. 1860-65
collodion prints (stereograph)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jim Dine
City Center Gilbert & Sullivan
1968
screenprint (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Robert Edward Darling
Stage Design for Salome at Vancouver Opera
1969
gouache on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Designer
Postage Stamp - Metropolitan Opera Centennial
1983
engraving with adhesive back
National Postal Museum, Washington DC

Heather Cooper
Canadian Opera
1977
offset lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Ariel Parkinson
Ezra Pound's Opera Le Testament
Zellerbach Auditorium, University of California
1971
offset lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Biagio Pinto
Pennsylvania Opera Company - Carmen
ca. 1973
screenprint (poster)
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

Emilio Sommariva
Lillian Evanti costumed for Rigoletto
ca. 1925
gelatin silver print
Anacostia Community Museum, Washington DC

Antoine-Jean Gros
Portrait of Celeste Coltellini
(opera singer called the Pearl of Naples)
ca. 1790
oil on canvas
Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky

Karl Domenic Geissbühler
Aida - Opernhaus Zürich
1997
offset lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Karl Domenic Geissbühler
Ein Sommernacht Traum - Opernhaus Zürich
1996
offset lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Karl Domenic Geissbühler
Elektra - Opernhaus Zürich
1991
offset lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Karl Domenic Geissbühler
Nabucco - Opernhaus Zürich
1998
offset lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Karl Domenic Geissbühler
Samson et Dalila - Opernhaus Zürich
1996
screenprint (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Karl Domenic Geissbühler
Semiramide - Opernhaus Zürich
1992
offset lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Karl Domenic Geissbühler
Spiegel das Kätzchen
Bernhard-Theater und Opernhaus Zürich
1990
offset lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Epitaph

These are the ashes of Timas

who died before she was wed,

and was led

to the blue dark room of Persephone.

And when she was dead

every girl her own age

cut, with a fresh-sharpened blade,

a beautiful lock from her head

to lay on the grave.

– Sappho (7th-6th century BC), translated by Suzy Groden (1964)