Edgar Degas, L'orchestre de l'opera
Oil on Canvas 1870
Musee d'Orsay, Paris
A list of my favourite things would have to include art, music, ballet and opera but rarely am I able to combine them into one experience. And yet, the Art Gallery of Ontario has done exactly that in their current exhibition Drama and Desire.
This exhibition includes over 100 paintings, drawings and theatrical maquettes by artists such as Degas, Delacroix, David, Ingres, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vuillard. The works were borrowed from the collections of the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée d'Orsay, the British Museum, and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Gerard Gauci, set designer for Opera Atelier, was the guest designer for this exhibition. With recreations of eighteenth and early twentieth century stage sets, sound and light effects, theatrical props and on-site performances, the art is dramatically brought to life.
Visitors enter the exhibition by walking ‘onstage' through a life-size 18th-century set and a full-scale re-creation of an early 20th-century theatre maquette marks the finale of the exhibition.
“Visitors to Drama and Desire will experience the exhibition as audience members, actors and even stage hands,” says Gauci. “Designing this exhibition has been like designing an opera with an overture, a series of distinct acts, special effects and a grand finale.”
Although the exhibition is open during regular gallery hours, you will be treated to an extra special experience if you are able to attend at one of the times listed below:
Sun. July 4: Artists of the Atelier Ballet, Opera Atelier (1:30 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pm)
Sat. July 10: CanadianStage (between 1:30 pm and 3:00 pm)
Sun. July 11: Artists of the Atelier Ballet, Opera Atelier (1:30 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pm)
Sat. July 17: CanadianStage (between 1:30 pm and 3:00 pm)
Sun. July 18: Artists of the Atelier Ballet, Opera Atelier (1:30 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pm)
Sat. July 24: Single-Thread Theatre Company (between 1:30 pm and 3:00 pm)
Sun. July 25: Artists of the Atelier Ballet, Opera Atelier (1:30 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pm)
Sat. July 31: CanadianStage (between 1:30 pm and 3:00 pm)
Performances will include actors from Canadian Stage Company performing excerpts from High Park’s version of Romeo and Juliet. Opera Atelier will feature ballet demonstrations in their production ‘Degas and his Dancers’. Single Thread Theatre Company will highlight key moments in Shakespeare’s dramas.
Drama and Desire runs until September 26, 2010.
317 Dundas Street West
Toronto, Ontario
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