On Sunday, October 16th, 2022, I went for a walk on the beach.
That would be the only time in the year I would dare to walk on the beach. I don’t like the heat, crowded places, and obviously the sun. I have developed an acute allergy to strong light.
So that is why I waited until October to take this walk. And I loved it. The sky was inviting to make amazing patterns. The abandoned buildings on the beach gave the images an eerie look.
From my "Opera Performances" Series: Giulietta e Romeo by Riccardo Zandonai.
Teatro Grattacielo (@teatrograttacielo) in co-production with Battery Park City Authority (@bpcparks).
Last weekend I had the unique opportunity to create these images for the Opera company Teatro Grattacielo. They created this magnificent open air performance in Battery Park, downtown New York.
The setting was espectacular, but more than that was the work Stefanos Koroneos, director of this amazing production, put it together for over a year.
I want to congratulate Stefanos, the whole cast, the orchestra, and technical team for such an achievement.
Also I want to thank Stefanos for allowing me and Dan to shoot this performance.
As I work close to the stage and therefore to the artists, I really have to make an effort to avoid falling under the spell created by the proximity to such a talents and therefore forgetting the work I have to do. It is very tempting to seat and just listen.
Tragedia In Tre Atti
Libretto | Arturo Rossato
As Federica Fortunato, scientific director of the Riccardo Zandonai International Study Center in Rovereto wrote, “the story lends itself to being a metaphor for our time: love, tenderness, friendship opposed to the logic of blood and power”. The epilogue is heartbreaking, but in reliving the emotions of Juliet and Romeo we all cultivate the image of that suffocated youth, as a noble response to the perverse conventions of the world. An alternative life in these years of pandemic and with horror in the heart of Europe.
Giulietta e Romeo, 3 acts of love, passion, death and tragedy stripped down to their most pure and intimate. The site-specific production will take place in Robert F. Wagner Jr.Park, Battery Park City, positioned next to New York’s waterfront with one of the most iconic views in the city, the Statue of Liberty in clear view.
With this production Teatro Grattacielo celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the opera, premiered on 14 February 1922 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome.
Eleni Calenos | Giulietta
Matthew Vickers | Romeo
Franco Pomponi | Tebaldo
Spencer Hamlin | Il Cantatore
Jeremy Brauner | Un Montecchio
Diego Valdez & David Santiago | Gregorio
Patrick Scully | Sansone
Melina Jaharis & Joanna Vladyka | Isabella
Eric Mckeever | Un Banditore
Rick Agster | Bernabo
Francesca Federico | Una Donna
Clara Luz Iranzo &
Kristina Malinauskaite | Prima Maschera
Artemisia Lefay | Seconda Maschera
Steven Kirby | Un Servo
Adam Goldstein & Samuel Ng | Un Famiglio Capuleto
Diego Valdez | Un Famiglio Di Romeo
Brianna Almonte & Monica Malas | Una Fante *
Melody L.Fletcher | Un’altra Fante
Christopher Lau | Un Fante
To know more about this amazing Opera Company go to https://grattacielo.org/
#teatrograttacielo #zandonai #operasingersofinstagram #operalife #meetopera #newyork #newyorklife #newyork_instagram
In an impossible task I will try to convey frustration, desolation, anguish, and why not, in the middle of all of that, happiness.
London was grim. And it would be a cheap shot to attribute that to the weather… it was deeper, personal, palpable. Everything played against the city. You could feel the panic, disappointment, a lack of pragmatism that surprise me after all the years I lived in such a beautiful place.
My photography was weird. I would walk around with my camera hanging from my neck but avoiding shooting. I didn’t want to show the fragile balance of a dropping pin. And when I shot, it was to in spite of.
It was a worrying enterprise.
I just finished listening to the latest episode of “The Candid Frame”, a podcast by Ibarionex Perello interviewing Sandra Adorno.
Her story is fascinating, starting with the fact that she got into photography 8 years ago when she was 60. Take the time to listen the Episode #573, it is really worthy.
In the podcast Sandra Adorno talks about reflections and how much she loves to look for them around and create images from there.
I was in my daily walk when I heard about her approach. As I had the camera with me, I started to pay attention more into them. It sounds obvious: “Reflections are everywhere”
* Follow The Candid Frame in any podcast application or listen in the link above (scrolling down the page)
So here images inspired by her talk:
Nothing beats a walk near the ocean. New York City offers many options and perhaps the easiest, closest is Coney Island. There I went to in this cold fall day. Winter is near, and people, very few people dare to face it here. Still I loved the peace of those strides on the boardwalk, looking the beautiful horizon the sea proposes.
Long shadows in the north hemisphere
When the cold invited me to leave.
