For my old and new friends and fellow opera lovers, here are photos of the Mighty NY Metopera evening of Il Trovatore, with superstars Anna Netrebko and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

In the most moving part of the evening, Hvorovosky was showered with yellow roses during his curtain call. He was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor and had cancelled all performances in July and August. He had only returned to perform with Anna Netrebko for three performances of Il Trovatore after positive treatment. You can read more about him on his website at:http://hvorostovsky.com/

Anna Netrebko, who played Leonora, was sublime, and Hvorostovsky was courageous and powerful. Delora Zajick, who played Azucena, and Yonghoon Lee, who played Manrico, were both well received.

Earlier in the day, we took a short walk to the Guggenheim Museum to see a highly recommended Doris Salcedo exhibition. Doris is a courageous artist who asks questions about trauma caused by colonialism, racism, and social injustice in her native Colombia and other countries through her work.

This museum was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, ca. 1959.
Most of the museum was closed during an installation of an exhibition. You can read more about this controversial museum at the time it was being designed and constructed at http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/about/frank-lloyd-wright-building

1. A Flor de Piel, 2014: Based on a burial shroud, this fabric is an homage to a nurse who was tortured and murdered in Colombia.Its enormous undulating fabric is painstakingly stitched together from chemically preserved rose petals–a material replet with romantic  associations that at the same time mimics the appearance of flayed skin.

2. Wooden Armoires with Concrete and Steel: Between 1989 and 2008, Salcedo created an expansive body of work forged from pieces of domestic furniture with concrete poured in them, as if to immobilize and be muted by grief. The furniture represents the families of those who have died and their silent mourning.

3. 11 Stacks of Shirts with Rebars evoke an image of violent incursion

4. Disremembered, 2014: Woven from strands of silk thread, these works take the form of garments that would harm rather than protect the wearer. The shimmering forms hover on the edge of visibility, in an expression of the artist’s interest in representing the experience of loss through the shifting lens of memory.

For more information, go to Doris Salcedo at guggenheim.org/Salcedo. (These descriptions are excerpts from the Doris Salcedo exhibition material at the Guggenheim)

On our walk back, we passed the Doggie Day Care Parade.
Available for your visual pleasure Only in New York.