ZANDRA RHODES: Verdi’s AIDA
Joseph Clayes III Gallery and Rotunda Gallery
ZANDRA RHODES
Verdi’s AIDA
April 10–May 15, 2010
Design icon Zandra Rhodes created the costumes, props, and sets for a production of Verdi’s Aida co-sponsored by Houston Grand Opera, English National Opera, San Francisco Opera, and Norwegian National Opera. Her Egyptian-inspired designs originated during a 1986 trip to Egypt and developed into her “dream world of gold, turquoise, and ultramarine” (Rhodes quoted in the London Evening Standard, April 18, 2007). The 2007 production at the English National Opera was described in the same article as Rhodes’ “opera debut on home turf.” The Athenaeum exhibition includes costumes, twelve headdresses, six banners, props, and giclee prints, with a concurrent sale featuring Rhodes’ silkscreened scarves, leather handbags, limited edition giclee prints, hand signed Aida prints, and books. Rhodes presented an artist’s talk on April 20.
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