Violetta Valery (A fallen woman)

Having reached an age where one starts to tick off certain things from a bucket list an opportunity arose to visit the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden to see the Giuseppe Verdi opera ‘La triviata’ (the fallen woman). Being my first opera this would be a great one to start with plus the opera house is such an iconic building I was very excited and full of anticipation. This blog post however is not a critique or expose of the operatic performance, amazing though it was, but how it became a piece of primary research and a source for a forthcoming exhibition being held at the James Hockey gallery in Farnham Surrey in March.

Upon entering the building and absorbing the mix of history and elegance from a bygone era (mid Victorian) to the state of the art 21st century additions and spectacle of walls of glass. Once suitably refreshed at the bar and seated the auditorium took its full affect of me, with a capacity of over 2000 seats the hustle and bustle of people taking their seats the orchestra tuning and the inevitable coughing the anticipation started to rise. I had been taking a few photographs on my phone and one in particular summed up this moment perfectly. A shot from my seat up in the gods looking down through the crowds of people to the stage curtain. The lights went down…

After the performance we waited in our seats for a while talking about the show but also absorbing the post climax sensation, and observing the theatre in a very different light, literally. With empty seats and full house lights blazing the magic and anticipation had vanished, we were sitting in a very large empty room with the remnants of what had just occurred. I again took a few picture’s and we made our exit. On reflection and with an art head on it did remind me of Michel Foucault’s theory of Heterotopia’s, buildings or places that are somehow ‘other’, worlds within worlds where the space or building is often benign but the activities held or performed within are total contrary. A theatre is just such a place. The experience and the photos taken have inspired a small series of works looking at this concept. The first of which is an oil on canvas entitled ‘Violetta’ after the main female character in the opera and is a cropped and edited version of the picture taken just before the performance started.