Opera: Passion, Power and Politics
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Running Time
Admission daily 10.00-17.30 (Last ticket 16.00, Last entry 16.15)
Exhibition closes 15 minutes prior to the Museum closing, please bear in mind when booking your timeslot.
Booking Dates
From

Sat 24 Feb 2018

To

Sun 25 Feb 2018

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Opera: Passion, Power and Politics

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, SW7 2RL
4.8 out of 5, based on 5 ratings and 5 reviews.
4.8

  • Opera: Passion, Power and Politics
    Sponsored by Societe Generale
    30 September 2017 – 25 February 2018
    The Victoria and Albert Museum
    Together the V&A and the Royal Opera House create a landmark exhibition presenting a vivid story of opera from its origins in late-Renaissance Italy to the present day. Told through the lens of seven premieres in seven European cities, this immersive exhibition takes you on a journey through nearly 400 years, culminating in the international explosion of opera in the 20th and 21st centuries.
    The Opera: Passion, Power and Politics exhibition reveals how the creation of a new opera can reflect the social, political, artistic and economic conversations that define cities, and reveals the process of making opera from libretto to score, from design to performance.
    The cities and premieres explored are: Venice and Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, 1642; London and Handel’s Rinaldo, 1711; Vienna and Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, 1786; Milan and Verdi’s Nabucco, 1842; Paris and Wagner’s Tannhäuser in its revised version, 1861; Dresden and Richard Strauss’s Salome, 1905; and St Petersburg and Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, 1934.
    Opera: Passion, Power and Politics is the inaugural exhibition in the V&A’s new Sainsbury Gallery, a new purpose-built subterranean gallery opening as part of the Exhibition Road Project and one of the largest temporary exhibition spaces in the UK. 
    Book your Opera: Passion, Power and Politics tickets today!

    Photo: 'Milano' from the series 'Fratelli d’Italia' 2005-2016 credit Matthias Schaller.
    Sponsored by Societe General
    Sound Partner Bowers & Wilkins
    Generously supported by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and The Taylor Family Foundation. 
    With further support from GRoW @ Annenberg, Bertelsmann and Cockayne Grants for the Arts – a donor-advised fund of The London Community Foundation.

    • 'Milano' from the series 'Fratelli d'Italia' 2005, 2016. Credit: Matthias Schaller.
    • Photo: ®Archivio Gianni Versace.
    • Photo: ®Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum (ISM).
    • Opera: Passion, Power and Politics installation. Image: Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
    • Opera: Passion, Power and Politics installation. Image: Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
    • Ensemble in 'Spaceship' at the dress rehearsal of Einstein on the Beach Philip Glass in collaboration Robert Wilson, LA, 2013. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho, Los Angeles Times, Getty Images.
    • Eva Gonzales, c.1874 Paris, Musee d'Orsay, gift of Jean Guerard, 1927. Credit: Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France, Bridgeman Images.
    • George Frideric Handel, Louis Francois Roubiliac, pre 1738, The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. Credit: Fitzwilliam Museum, Bridgeman Images.
    • Georges de Feure lithograph of Salome, 1895.
    • Opera: Passion, Power and Politics installation. Image: Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
    • Opera: Passion, Power and Politics installation. Image: Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
    • The Dancer's reward, Plate XIV, Aubrey Beardsley (1872-98).
  • Victoria and Albert Museum

    Cromwell Road,
    London,
    SW7 2RL

  • Full Seating Plan

  • THE GUARDIAN

    5 stars
    'A game-changing spectacular show'

    THE TIMES

    4 stars
    'The V&A hits the right note with a virtuoso seven-act operatic journey'