Moby-Dick Domes by Frank Stella

-
Happy New Year!

It seems with Moby-Dick on our opera radar (sonar?) we keep on finding references to this work everywhere we go. The holidays saw the Aria Serious crew in San Francisco and one beautiful afternoon we took a tour of the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. And we're glad we did. Since we were seriously debating another trip the California Academy of Sciences.

In one of the rooms, a piece of art popped out at us (literally, it's three dimensional) by artist Frank Stella called The Cabin, Ahab and Starbuck from a series of works called The Moby-Dick Domes. Familiar with Frank Stella but totally unfamiliar with his Moby-Dick Domes we jotted it down on our museum receipt to look into later.

Well today we were wearing the same pants we wore to the De Young and happened to find our note in the pocket "check Moby-Dick Domes, Frank Stella [something unintelligible]" and found this great article on this series that the artist spent 15 years working on.  The series tries to capture the power and emotion of the novel rather than attempt to narrate it and it's an impressive body of work consisting of 135 pieces: prints, reliefs, sculpture, murals, and other ephemera with each work relating to one chapter of Moby-Dick.

On the cusp of presenting Moby-Dick we're just amazed at how much art one piece of literature has engendered over the years. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Five Things About La boheme You Don't Need To Know But Will Be Glad You Did

-
Getting ready with Dr. Nic last week for a TV interview he came up with five tidbits about La boheme to be used on air. Live TV being what live TV is, not all of them made it onto the show, but I thought they were interesting enough to be recycled here on the blog. Besides, I'm busy hammering away at the 2011 press release so pressed for time today. 2011 press release you say? You betcha. But, faithful readers, here's a tidbit: a certain married couple returns to us next season in another opera by Gounod. Without further ado, five things about La boheme you'll be glad to know 1) Giacomo Puccini’s opera La boheme is one of the three most popular operas ever written but it wasn ’t always that way. It was not an immediate success. An opera by a rival Italian composer, Ruggiero Leoncavallo, on the same subject (and also named Le bohème ) premiered about a year after Puccini’s and was quite successful. It’s possible that, in fact, Puccini actually stole the idea ...
Read more

10 Interesting Facts About Faust

-
A few weeks ago Dr. Nic shared with us 10 interesting things about Der Rosenkavalier , born out of an agonizing ride in the elevator where we stopped on every floor from the subterranean parking garage to the 18 th floor. Luckily we didn't have to recreate that experience to get 10 interesting facts about Faust ... 1. There is a well-known Christmas carol hidden in Méphistophélès ’ first aria, “Le veau d’or”, often called the “Golden Calf aria”. 2. The best known tune from Faust, Valentin’s aria “ Avant de quitter”, was added in 1864, a couple of years after the premiere of the opera (1859) for performances in London. It was sung in English at those performances and the French version followed later. 3. Although the story of Faust is based on Goethe’s original verse play (1806), it only covers Part I of the poet’s version, avoiding the more philosophical depths of Part II. 4. The source of the story of Faust was an actual person, a Doctor Johann ...
Read more

Pop Star to Opera Star

-
Image
We here at Aria Serious are torn by the news that ITV in the UK is filming a new reality series called "Pop Star to Opera Star" where pop stars will tackle the operatic repertoire while being mentored by Katherine Jenkins and Rolando Villazon. While we here at Aria Serious love to see our favorite art form on prime time TV, we're also concerned that this lowers the artistic standard. In a Company that prides itself in attracting the best talent possible, do shows like this undermine our work or is it a much needed breath of fresh air? One thing the show has going for it - Meatloaf (the singer, not the leftovers in your fridge) will be a judge. You can read about it here .
Read more