Opera: Passion, Power
and Politics at the Victoria and Albert Museum
I am visiting the V&A. I’m a member, I’ve been coming
for years, and I’m lost. How can I be lost? I’m an expert here. The Fashion
gallery featured in my debut novel, Threads.
Countless girls have visited the fabulous café off the courtyard on my
recommendation. The V&A’s predecessor, the South Kensington Museum,
features in Unveiling Venus,my next
book. But the museum is ever-expanding.
It has just opened up a new wing, and I don’t know where I’m going.
I rather like it.
Galleries and museums used to scare me. When I was growing
up, they were dark and dusty places, full of yellowing Old Masters and
oddly-arranged exhibits in glass and mahogany cases, arranged in ways I didn’t
understand. I felt that I should know more about them than I did. I was
overawed, overwhelmed, and at the same time somehow bored. I associated them
with school visits, clipboards and checklists. Now I love them. I’ve changed,
but so have they.
I’m on my way to see the V&A’s new opera-themed exhibition.
I like opera very much, but I’m not a super-fan – I love ballet more. I’m
intrigued by the idea of it but I’m really here to see the new architecture of
the Sackler Courtyard, the highlight of the new Exhibition Road Quarter, which was
designed by Amanda Levete Architects cost £55 million to build.
Let us start by celebrating a senior female architect. There
aren’t many of them about. One of the first, a nineteenth-century American, was
called Sophia Bennett, by the way. For obvious reasons I am fond of her. But
for just as obvious reasons (old-fashioned misogyny) my namesake would never
have got a commission like this. Amanda Levete’s vision beat Daniel Libeskind’s
to raise the money required to build it – about half whatLibeskind would have
needed. From the moment you enter the piazza laid with 11,000 white porcelain
tiles, every view is startling. I’m busy taking pictures of dramatic light
shafts and sweeping staircases, to post on my Instagram feed. This visit is an
adventure.
It doesn’t take long to find a sign pointing to the
exhibition. Down one of those sweeping staircases, to a basement lobby where
I’m handed a very expensive-looking pair of headphones. I put them on, curious.
It turns out that as I walk through each room they automatically play
appropriate snatches of music depending on where I’m standing. This has become
an aural experience that I wasn’t expecting. (But it’s opera! So maybe I should
have been.) It’s immersive and wonderful, as long as I don’t walk too fast.
I didn’t read up on the exhibition so I go with the flow. We
start off in seventeenth century Venice, looking at foot-high wooden platform
shoes, designed to help courtesans navigate flooded streets. This is where
opera started. I’ve just set the first part ofUnveiling Venus in Venice, so I’ve been steeped in its history
recently and this is gorgeous. I could stay in this room for ages. Then we’re
off to eighteenth century London, where a mechanical stage recreates the
impression of rolling waves, then on to Vienna, where we can look at one of
Mozart’s original scores with his handwritten changes. Mozart’s actual writing!
Mozart suggesting ideas and changing his mind! It’s as close as we will ever
get to him, and a special moment. Meanwhile video screens around the room show Le Nozze di Figaro in action. My
headphones play along.
I’ve learned to associate opera with the different cities
that inspired it, but by now I’m tiring. This is when I remember the advice of
my first proper boyfriend – Joe, an artist himself, who I dated in Venice and who
taught me how to enjoy discovering art. ‘Don’t try and take everything in,’ he
said. ‘Walk round it rather quickly and look out for one or maximum two things
in each room that really catch your eye. Then start again, knowing what to
expect, and go at your own pace. Only look at those one or two things. Ignore
the rest.’ He probably kissed me after that bit. We would have walked through
the long rooms holding hands. Then we would have gone back to our hotel for a
siesta and whatever else you do when inspired by love and art.
But today I’m on my own so I just think about the exhibits. Instead
of trying to absorb as much as possible, I try and focus on as little as possible. It really works. It
enables me to focus better and remember more. I walk to the end of the
exhibition, which gets increasingly modern, video-focused and conceptual, and
realise there’s little in the second half to please me. But there are some
lovely nineteenth century paintings by Manet in the middle, and a dress worn by
Princess Josephine to a premiere that I happilyto come back to stare at for a
while.
It’s not the greatest exhibition I’ve seen at the V&A.
Without doubt, that was the McQueen extravaganza ‘Savage Beauty’ in 2015, which
was a record-breaking tour de force selling nearly half a million tickets,
following its equally successful opening at the Met in New York. The ‘David
Bowie Is’from2013 was fabulous too. Both made use of technology and sound and
were architectural, costume-led, wraparound experiences.
‘Opera …’ is not that, but I certainly know a lot more about
the history of opera now, and those headphones were good at bringing some of
the famous arias to life. It was worth the visit for the eighteenth century
mechanical waves and the Mozart manuscript. And the surrounding architecture was
as uplifting as I hoped it would be. The V&A is working hard on remaining
one of the best design-led museums in the world, and I hope I encourage more of
my readers to seek out its fashion galleries, cafes, courtyards and whichever
other nooks and crannies might inspire them.
The
queen of contemporary, Sophia Bennett, turns her hand to sizzling and sumptuous
historical YA in the second of this swoonworthy series with a feminist twist.
In the gossip-fuelled world of
Victorian London, Persephone Lavelle is the name on everyone’s lips. As Mary’s
secret identity is exposed and rumours fly, she flees the scandal by escaping
to Venice. Lost among the twisting alleyways and shadowy canals she encounters
a mysterious, masked young man. He offers her the world, but at what price?
Glorious
details bring the world of 19th-century Venice to life in Unveiling Venus, the sequel to Pre-Raphaelite YA romance, Following Ophelia. With masked balls,
mysterious strangers and thrilling gossip, you won’t want to miss this dazzling
adventure.
A whirlwind story
of art, passion and underworld adventures that will enchant the reader, perfect for fans of The Luxeseries and A Great
And Terrible Beauty.
Sophia Bennett’s debut novel, Threads,
won the Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition in 2009. She has
since published six further novels for young teens, including The Look and Love Song. Sophia has been called ‘the queen of
teen dreams’ by journalist Amanda Craig, for her exploration of the worlds of
fashion, art and music. Her books have sold internationally to over 16
countries and there are plans to make Threads into a children’s TV series.
Visit www.sophiabennett.com
Visit www.sophiabennett.com
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