Word: opera
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...artistic flair. The living room holds futons with patterned slipcovers; and the walls have awards given posthumously to their mother. Each night Hafsat quizzes Hadi, 11, and Mumuni, 13, about whether they've done their homework. Khafila, a witty and irreverent 19-year-old, is studying to be an opera singer at Catholic University; and Moriam, who just turned 18, is at home for the summer from Connecticut College. Hafsat's daily routine is more stable than anyone could have imagined at the time of her mother's death, but this hard-won American life is not enough...
...This is opera, right? Absolutely, says David Gockley, general director of the Houston Grand Opera, which has mounted an up-to-the-second production of Georges Bizet's Carmen to show off its new portable outdoor stage, a $1.4 million innovation designed to get the much admired company out of its fancy downtown theater and into the lives of Houstonians who don't know Don Jose from Donald Duck. Gockley calls it "nothing less than a new way to produce opera." Irreverent locals dubbed the show Carmen a-go-go but turned out to cheer. More than 7,000 paying...
...bother? According to Gockley, Houston Grand Opera, which is internationally renowned for its avant-garde productions, had come to be seen by its hometown as elitist. "The political and funding community," he says, "was telling us, 'We know you have a certain stature, but if you don't begin to reach and touch more people, you're going to gradually drop off our priority list.'" So he asked Billington and Foy to create a fully portable stage suitable for special performances aimed at young, TV-oriented viewers unfamiliar with opera. "What does rock 'n' roll do? That was our mandate...
...same logic dictated Gockley's unorthodox choice of director. "They came to me and said, 'Do this opera,' and I said, 'You're crazy! I don't know from opera!'" says Michele Assaf, who choreographs musical comedies and rock videos. But her inexperience turned out to be a blessing. While many directors now treat 19th century opera as an opportunity to stuff unsuspecting audiences full of identity politics (the oppression of Gypsy women under late capitalism, say), Assaf was content to interpret the world's most popular opera as a straightforward tale of love and death. "It's a story...
...will--Burne-Jones' art was largely about passivity, and his knights look a tad sluggish even when they are skewering dragons. He idolized Michelangelo--the year 1871 found Burne-Jones flat on his back on a traveling rug in the Sistine Chapel, minutely scrutinizing the ceiling with opera glasses--and comatose versions of the Slaves and Captives abound in his work. The dream-suffused character of the art of Burne-Jones won him a following on the other side of the Channel by connecting him to painters in the stream of French and Belgian Symbolism: Gustave Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes...