.
“Heaven's ebon vault, studded with stars unutterably bright, through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,
seems like a canopy which love has spread to curtain her sleeping world” Percy Bysshe Shelley
seems like a canopy which love has spread to curtain her sleeping world” Percy Bysshe Shelley
Stage set for "Robert le Diable",opera by Meyerbeer Paris,1831.before the move to the Palais Garnier
Stage sets by Charles Sechan,inspired by the cloisters of St.Trophime in Arles.from here
"He greatly valued his possessions, chiefly because they were his,
and derived genuine pleasure from contemplating a painting,
a statuette,
a rare lace curtain -
no matter what -
after he had bought it and placed it among his household gods." Kate Chopin
Pavlova by Zinaida Serebriakova,1923.
"An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down.
It starts in my imagination,
it becomes my life,
and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house." Maria Callas
Her Garden by Catrin Welz-Stein
"Once the curtain is raised, the actor is ceases to belong to himself.
He belongs to his character,
to his author,
to his public.
He must do the impossible to identify himself with the first,
not to betray the second,
and not to disappoint the third."
Sarah Bernhardt
Cate Blanchett, by Annie Leibowitz
This post has reminded me that painted backdrops are a dying art in the theater here in the United States. You don't see many really beautiful painted sets anymore. It's considered old fashioned. But how beautiful they were with many of them even being backlit for night scenes.
ReplyDeleteKate- as always- astonishes. I sat next to her at an eatery that is no more in the West Village some years ago, and was fascinated at her faceted face- that's the best way I can describe it. In real life it is all angles, yet when translated onto film she becomes more than the sum of her parts. Very painterly. You have to stand back to appreciate her.
Ditto from here on theatre sets.......the curtains....the painted backdrops!
ReplyDeleteThink of it!! Tony Duquette.....all those divine things.....did they throw them away?
There must have been people there fishing them out??
Amazing post! Thank you!
Daniel,Penelope. True.
ReplyDeleteDaniel, fascinating to hear about Cate-Her acting skills bear out this idea of a faceted face-I would match her to any actress today-or yesterday.
Penelope-Tony Duquette, of course!