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David Kreitzer's famous poster for Seattle Opera's 1981 staging of "Tristan und Isolde" still generates warm smiles and wistful sighs. The painting of the doomed lovers was considered extraordinary for its time: brash, bold, sexy. Certainly not what people expected from the Seattle Opera, and probably not what they envisioned when they thought of the German composer Richard Wagner.
"It was plastered all over town," recalled Kreitzer, who returns to Seattle this month with not just a poster but an entire gallery show of artwork inspired by Wagner's four-opera "Ring" cycle, which opened Sunday at Seattle Opera and continues through Aug. 30.
The exhibition evolved after the opera company asked Kreitzer to create five paintings, one to serve as the promotional poster for this year's "Ring" production, the other four representing each of the operas in the cycle, "Das Rheingold," "Die Walkure," "Siegfried" and "Gotterdammerung." (All five paintings are on display in the lobby of McCaw Hall.)
It seems Kreitzer got carried away. He created more than 70 paintings of giants and gnomes, of gods and dragons, of rings, rainbows and swords.
"It was amazing," he said Friday in Seattle. "I'd always wanted to do a 'Ring' poster and I've always loved the 'Ring.' ?When I started doing these (five paintings) it just poured out, and I just kept going. I had all these neat ideas and I thought, 'Man, I've got to continue with this.' "
Devotees of traditional Wagnerian illustration may be surprised. Detractors may be relieved. There are no clich閐 Brunhildes here. No armored breastplates. Indeed, no armor at all on Kreitzer's Valkyries. He decided they would ride naked off the precipice, and while the version of the Valkyries that is hanging in McCaw Hall shows them at a discreet distance, others in Kreitzer's show make no mistake that the uniform of the day is no uniform at all.
Kreitzer's Rhinemaidens also go the clothing-optional route, but that is totally consistent with Wagnerian intent. They are, after all, water nymphs. Kreitzer clearly likes to flout convention, though, so he also tried different approaches with these guardians of the Rhine's golden treasure. Among his favorites are images showing air bubbles rising as the maidens cavort underwater.
"That wasn't easy," said Kreitzer, who readily admits some images work better than others. As with any artistic endeavor, he also knows something he's less fond of may take someone else's breath away. It's why he continued painting "Ring" images for two and a half years. And it's why he thinks there's a market for the paintings, which range in price from $500 to $10,000 (for the original painting of the "Ring" poster).
"The mythology interests people," Kreitzer said. "The images interest people. But, in the end, I wanted to make these things into something that people would want to hang in their homes whether they knew the 'Ring' or not."
Kreitzer, who lives on the central California coast, calls his art romantic realism. When not taking on Wagner and the fantastic legends of the Norse sagas, he is given to painting landscapes, floral still lifes and, most recently, koi fish. The latter helped inform his rendering of the Rhinemaidens, particularly the distortion one encounters when looking into water. He works in oils and watercolors; the "Ring" art is done mostly in oil.
Kreitzer's use of color, light and shadow gives his "Ring" pieces a softer feel than one might associate with Wagner's robust angularity. Maybe it's because, to Kreitzer, Wagner is really a soft touch. Kreitzer met his first wife, the opera singer Jean Cook, when Cook was performing in the "Ring" during Seattle Opera's 1979-80 season. After Cook died of cancer in 1986, Kreitzer fell in love with and married another opera singer, Jacalyn Bower, whom he met at another Wagner event in Seattle.
Beyond the "Tristan und Isolde" poster and this year's "Ring" project, Kreitzer has had only three other commissions for Seattle Opera, all in the early 1980s. But he is grateful for the relationship and jokes that he's been "rediscovered" after a hiatus of more than two decades.
"They've been great about this," he said of the monthlong exhibit at Fisher Pavilion, which benefits the opera to the tune of 40 percent of sales. "They've been nothing but helpful. I'm really impressed."
Kreitzer also understands that his "Ring" art may not resonate with audiences the way his "Tristan und Isolde" poster did. He said he knew at the time he painted "Tristan" that it was something special, maybe never to be duplicated. Seattle Opera knows it, too. The company reissued a limited-edition print of the poster in 1998 for another staging of "Tristan," and copies of the poster continue to be among the best-selling items in the opera's gift shop.
Might it enjoy another renaissance in 2010? Seattle Opera announced Sunday that it will stage a new production of "Tristan und Isolde" a year from now, but it was not clear if Kreitzer's poster will play a role. Nonetheless, Kreitzer seemed pleased by the announcement.
"If it's the only painting I'm ever remembered for," he said, "that will be fine with me."
By JOHN LEVESQUE |
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