Artist Elizabeth Peyton's Wagner Exhibition to Open at the Metropolitan Opera, 2/25

Artist Elizabeth Peyton's Wagner, an exhibition of works based on the characters in Der Ring des Nibelungen, will open at the Metropolitan Opera on February 25. Wagner is the second in a series of exhibitions celebrating the Met's new production of the composer's Ring cycle. Peyton's work will be shown at the Arnold & Marie Schwartz Gallery Met and in other locations throughout the opera house; this will be the first time an artist's exhibition will not be limited to the gallery itself. The show will include nearly 30 works. A majority are new monotypes and drawings made for the exhibition.

"There is a sound of human emotions that Wagner captures that is so heartbreaking," said Peyton, who immersed herself in the Ring, Tristan und Isolde, and Tannhäuser recordings while creating the works that appear in Wagner. "It's a challenge to embrace Wagner as a human being-not as hard to embrace him as an artist. To make a narrative so transcendent is a gigantic feat, and the music is so mindblowing."

Peyton is one of the world's leading contemporary artists, best known for romanticized paintings of artists, friends, and cultural and historical figures. Among her past subjects is Wagner's patron, King Ludwig II of Bavaria; two earlier Peyton depictions of Ludwig, the charcoal drawing Ludwig with Josef Kainz (1992) and the oil painting Ludwig After He Drowned (1993), are part of the Wagner exhibition. The complicated, flawed beings that populate Wagner's world-from the weary king Wotan to the headstrong warrior maiden Brünnhilde-are transfigured in Peyton's work into portraits that express the beauty and humanity that exist at the heart of the operas.

"I chose Elizabeth for this project because she's not only one of the strongest artists of her generation, but she has an uncanny ability to say something new about historical figures through her portraits," says Gallery Met director Dodie Kazanjian. "It seemed like Wagner and his Ring might open another door to her imaginative thinking."

The Gallery Met portions of Wagner are free and open to the public, with no reservation required, during the gallery's hours of operation: Mondays through Fridays from 6 p.m. to the end of the last intermission and Saturdays from noon to the end of the last evening intermission. Gallery Met is closed on Sundays.

In addition, the Met is offering guided tours of Wagner-which include the entire exhibition, including the portions on display in Gallery Met and those works displayed on other levels of the opera house-which must be scheduled in advance via email to peytontours@metopera.org. Tours may be scheduled for each Friday, beginning February 25 and leaving every half-hour between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Please note that there will be no tours of Wagner on March 11 and 25 or on April 1, 15 and 22.

Robert Lepage's new production of Die Walküre, the second installment of Der Ring des Nibelungen, will premiere April 22 with James Levine conducting and Deborah Voigt, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Jonas Kaufmann, and Bryn Terfel in leading roles. Gallery Met's Ring-related exhibitions began in September 2010 with Julie Mehretu's Notations After the Ring. For more information on the Met's contemporary visual arts initiatives, which are curated by Dodie Kazanjian, please visit www.metopera.org/gallerymet.

ABOUT GALLERY MET

The Arnold & Marie Schwartz Gallery Met, located in the opera house lobby's south side, is a showcase for the contemporary works of art that reaffirms the company's long history of relationships with major visual artists. Gallery Met, directed by Dodie Kazanjian since its inception in 2006, is made possible through an initial $1 million donation by Marie Schwartz, an Advisory Director on the Metropolitan Opera's Board.

Gallery Met also has an outdoor component of its exhibitions: artist-designed banners that hang on the façade of the opera house to coincide with new productions. The current banner is Le Comtesse Ory (After Velázquez) by Francesco Vezzoli, tied to the Met premiere of Rossini's Le Comte Ory.

Gallery Met opened in September 2006 with Heroines, an exhibition of works inspired by the 2006- 07 season's new productions. The artists represented included Cecily Brown, John Currin, Richard Prince, David Salle, Wangechi Mutu, and others. Gallery Met's first solo exhibition, Stage Fright by Argentine artist Guillermo Kuitca, kicked off the 2007-08 season, followed by Hansel and Gretel, featuring artists from The New Yorker and the contemporary art scene. The works, based on The Brothers Grimm story, were on display during the run of the new production of Humperdinck's fairy tale opera. In conjunction with the Met premiere of the Philip Glass opera Satyagraha during the 2008-2009 season, Gallery Met exhibited 18 portraits by Chuck Close of his composer friend in the exhibition Chuck Close Philip Glass 40 Years. That summer, Gallery Met presented eight portraits by Francesco Clemente in an exhibition called The Sopranos. The exhibition featured portraits of the divas who figured prominently in the Met's 2008-09 season, with a hardcover catalog of Francesco Clemente: The Sopranos available in bookstores. Also in 2008-9, Gallery Met presented a solo exhibition by Canadian artist David Altmejd, coinciding with the premiere of John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic, followed by the exhibition From the Met to the Met: Anselm Kiefer and Wagner's "Ring". In the first collaboration between the Metropolitan Opera and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wagner-inspired works by contemporary artist Anselm Kiefer were shown to coincide with the revival of Otto Schenk's production which was making its final run at the opera house. The 2009-10 season opened with the Tosca-inspired exhibition Something About Mary, which showcased works about Mary Magdalene by 14 contemporary artists including Paul Chan, Marlene Dumas, George Condo, and John Currin. In 2010, William Kentridge's Ad Hoc: Works for The Nose opened at Gallery Met in conjunction with the Met premiere of Shostakovich's The Nose in a production directed by the artist.

The current season opened with a special exhibition of work by internationally renowned artist Julie Mehretu tied to Robert Lepage's new production of Das Rheingold. Elizabeth Peyton's exhibition is the second in a series tied to the Met's new Ring cycle, with the final two exhibitions scheduled to open in the 2011-12 season.

Admission is free and Gallery Met is open to the public six days a week; the hours are Monday through Friday from 6 p.m. through the last intermission, and Saturdays from noon through the last intermission of the evening performance.

For more information, visit www.metopera.org/gallerymet.

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