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.
| For more information or to make a booking please contact Group Line on 020 7206 1174 or via email at [email protected] |