Cathy's Art Diary

Glamorous exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the concept of the Diva from Victorian opera singers to today. The ground floor looked at stage and screen and the more open upper floor looked at the reclaiming of the Diva. That floor was spectacular but I felt I lost track of the themes and narrative because it was so visually stunning. I didn’t take the headphones for the tour as a friend said she found it distracting as in a crowd it triggered in the wrong   places. In did fine instead of that I seemed to be surrounded by shouting middle aged people who couldn’t hear each other over the music in their ears. I loved that they included a lot of opera singers particularly as I still think of the idea of the diva as an opera concept. I also liked that they included film stars not just singers. It was a good touch that the biographies of the women pointed out where they had been pioneering in their field and linked this to the different phases of feminism. All...

Interesting exhibition at Glyndebourne by Lubaina Himid. Himid draws on her love of opera to respond to the current season at the opera house. Himid trained as a theatre designer before turning to art and grew up listening to opera records owned by her grandfather. The centrepiece, which is also the cover of the season's programme, looks at what love sounds like combine the title with an abstract piece based on the structure of the ear. This was combined with some of her signature pieces painted on the inside of draws. The commentary says she images the portraits are people involved in the operas. Himid has also done paintings inspired by the operas in the current season which are used in the programme to introduce each work which I think are on display in another venue. I must investigate as I am due to go again! Closes 27 August 2023 Review Guardian    

Interesting exhibition at Glyndebourne marking 70 years of their production of a programme to cover the whole season of opera. The Glyndebourne programme, as the commentary said, is “an anthology of ideas on opera, art, history and place.” Over the years they have commissioned well known artists to design them. This year it is designed by Maggi Hambling and there were previous examples by David Hockney and Oliver Messel. I liked this photo print by Mark Vessey, commissioned to mark this event of the edges all the covers. Closes 28 August 2022

Lavish exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the history of opera via seven operas the cities they premiered in. I loved the fact this show put the operas into their social and political contexts and that each section had a similar rhythm with a contemporary map of the city, prints of the opera houses and portraits of the main protagonist. I also like the large, blackboard like fact board in each section which gave a simple outline of the story and why the opera was ground-breaking. It was great to have the audio tour as this would have been a strange show without music however I found it didn’t always trigger in the right places and in comparing the experience with the other people I was with we had each missed certain sections as we’d stood in different places. Needless to say I liked the earlier sections best as I preferred this music and they fell into periods I love in art. The Venice section was luscious and focused the city as one of entertain...