Celebrating National Opera Week — Musically And Visually

Did you know this is National Opera Week? Since last Friday, Oct. 29, an continuing through Nov. 7, Opera America, the National Endowment for the Arts and opera companies around the U.S. are celebrating their genre with free “fun” activities, including backstage tours, flash performances and YouTube contests.

I know about this because, “On October 8, 2010, the Honorable Richard M. Daley proclaimed “October 29-November 7, 2010 to be OPERA WEEK IN CHICAGO…join all Chicagoans in celebrating this special milestone and the vital role (Chicago Opera Theater) plays in the cultural life of our city.”

I got that from the COT, ~~and assume that it edited the quote~~ — ~~because Mayor Daley could hardly have left out the Chicago Lyric Opera.~~ Apologies to COT: its edit only replaced “this ensemble” with COT’s name.

Still, I was thrilled to learn that COT is offering “Pop-Up Opera” around Chicago during this week – “short performances of opera classics at iconic Chicago locations.” And there’s “Beers and Baritones,” which involves a short opera performance and an open beer and wine bar at Goose Island Brewery. Great outreach. Details here.

If you click on that link in the first line of this post, you can access a state-by-state list of events.

There’s no mention of other mayoral proclamations — where’s opera-lover Rudy Giuliani when we need him? I say that because a check on Google News shows that National Opera Week merited four news items in Chicago, but only a few other places — Miami, Syracuse — even had one news item.

Oddly, in New York, the Metropolitan Opera doesn’t seem to be offering anything. I say oddly, because its outreach via its simulcasts, plaza broadcasts, and free events is very praiseworthy. It wouldn’t have been hard to schedule something this week to raise the profile of all opera companies. (I hope it doesn’t consider itself above it all.)

But never fear, New York City has a piece of this, and it involves the visual arts. To celebrate National Opera Week, the New York City Opera is offering a free public viewing of “Parallel Perceptions,” a contemporary art show that features works by six visual artists who “have been paired with the productions from City Opera’s 2010-11 season.”

NYCO has hitched its wagon to works by Kehinde Wiley, Tina Barney, Charles Ray, Isaac Julian, Pipilotti Rist, and Dash Snow, saying that they “offer a fresh perspective on our interpretation of opera’s most archetypal characters and themes in this season’s performances…”

The exhibtion, curated by Naomi Ben-Shahar, opens to the public on Nov. 3, from 6-9 PM on the orchestra level and rings of the David H. Koch Theater, and continues through Nov. 21.