Design for a Stage Set at the Opéra, Paris 1830 - 1890

Editor: Here we have Eugène Cicéri's "Design for a Stage Set at the Opéra, Paris," likely created between 1830 and 1890. It’s a pencil drawing, maybe even a print? I’m struck by how fragile and ethereal it seems. It’s like a memory of a place rather than a solid representation. What pulls you in when you look at it? Curator: Ah, yes, a ghostly vision indeed. For me, it’s that tension between precision and fantasy. Look at the architectural details of the building – the windows, the roofline. Cicéri captures them with such clarity. Yet, the skeletal tree and hazy atmosphere give it an otherworldly quality, doesn't it? Like a half-remembered dreamscape for the stage. Makes you wonder what grand opera was meant to be played out on it. Does the lack of human figure impact on you? Editor: Absolutely! It’s almost unnerving how empty the scene is. You expect singers and costumes, a whole dramatic narrative, but there’s just this building, waiting. The dreamlike quality you mentioned – I keep coming back to that. It's beautiful, but with an unsettling emptiness. Curator: Perhaps that emptiness *is* the narrative. The potential, the anticipation of the drama to come. And remember, opera is all about heightened emotions, exaggerated gestures. Cicéri gives us the stage for those emotions, the backdrop against which they'll explode. It is quite an achievement for the pencil, wouldn't you say? Editor: That's a great point. The building is a blank canvas waiting to be filled. I was so focused on what wasn't there, I missed the potential! This stage design gives a new perspective of operatic expectations, it seems to be, if such can be, the anticipation for explosive emotions. Curator: Exactly! Art, like opera, often lies in the unsaid, the unseen. Thank you. This makes me appreciate the suggestive quality of stage design. I’m inspired! Editor: Me too. I'll definitely be thinking about absence and anticipation the next time I'm at the opera!