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subscribe to beauty blog via RSSAudio-Visual Begets Aroma-Audio
May 21, 2009 1:38 pm
While trips to the opera offer sensory explorations in sight and sound (and taste, if you help yourself to refreshments during intermission), smell has long been ignored by this grand tradition of musical theater. But with the debut of Scent Opera, all of that’s about to change. Sponsored by Thierry Mugler and premiering at the Guggenheim on May 31, Green Aria is a libretto written by Stewart Matthew that uses 23 unique scents designed by famed perfumer Christophe Laudamiel to tell the story. That’s right—there won’t be any singing at this show. Instead, six-second sequences of perfume chords will do the narrating, with original music composed by Nico Muhly and Valgeir Sigurdsson for accompaniment. A one-of-a-kind scent organ engineered by Fläkt Woods will pump the dry fragrances into “scent microphones” attached to each seat at the museum’s Peter B. Lewis Theater. The idea is to create a new connection between mind and scent, insofar as audience members will have to decipher each smell as it relates to the plot line. The unfolding narrative will therefore take on something of a “choose your own adventure” quality, wherein familiar scents may evoke the same images for everyone and less familiar scents will be left to personal interpretation. Intrigued? The evening performances sold out pretty quickly, but there are still seats available for the 4:30 showing on Monday, June 1.
tags: Christophe Laudamiel, Fl�kt Woods, Fragrance, Green Aria, Guggenheim, Nico Muhly, ScentOpera, Stewart Matthew, Thierry Mugler, Valgeir Sigurdsson
