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from the issue of August 23, 2007
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Hopper's 'Room in New York, other works fuel new opera
BY TOM WHITE, SHELDON MEMORIAL ART GALLERY
The uneasy relationship between a man and a woman in Edward Hopper's painting "Room in New York" - one of Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery's best-known artworks - has helped inspire a new opera opening in November in Maryland
"Later the Same Evening," an opera inspired by five Hopper paintings, is a joint project of the National Gallery of Art, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and the University of Maryland School of Music. Composer John Musto and librettist Mark Campbell collaborated on the project.
Five paintings that poignantly capture moments of loneliness and estrangement are woven into the opera's set design through projections. "Room in New York" (1932), "Hotel Window" (1955), "Hotel Room" (1931), "Two on the Aisle" (1927), and "Automat" (1927) all depict scenes of urban isolation. The opera imagines the lives of the figures in the paintings, beginning with the man and woman in "Room in New York," and connects them as characters - both directly and tangentially - on one evening in New York City in 1932.
Performed at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in College Park, Maryland, from Nov. 15-18 and then at the National Gallery of Art on Dec. 2, the opera is offered in conjunction with the first comprehensive exhibition of Hopper's work to be seen in museums outside of New York in more than 25 years.
The exhibition "Edward Hopper," organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is now on view in Boston through Aug. 19. It will be on view at the National Gallery of Art from Sept. 16 through Jan. 21, 2008. It will be seen at the Art Institute of Chicago, Feb. 16 through May 11, 2008. "Room in New York," on loan by the Sheldon, is one of approximately 60 works in the exhibition.
Four performances of "Later the Same Evening," an opera inspired by five paintings of Edward Hopper, will be given at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center's Kay Theatre Nov. 15-17, at 7:30 p.m. and on Nov. 18, at 3 p.m. One performance will be given at the National Gallery of Art on Dec. 2, at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets for the Nov. 15-18 performances are available online at www.claricesmithcenter.umd.edu.
For the free Dec. 2 performance at will be accepted beginning Oct. 1 at www.nga.gov/hopper.
Additional information is available at www.sheldon.unl.edu.
GO TO: ISSUE OF AUGUST 23
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