World Premiere of the ‘Hoppera’

All-American art icon Edward Hopper is getting major play at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, with 94 pieces on display in the first comprehensive American exhibition of his work outside of New York in more than 25 years.

Featuring Hopper’s well-known mid-century works like “Nighthawks”

and “Automat,” the striking exhibition has attracted a shoulder-to-shoulder stream of visitors since opening September 16.

The National Gallery explains Hopper’s universal appeal: “In etchings, watercolors, and oil paintings, he portrayed ordinary places—drugstores, apartment houses, and small towns. Both commonplace and mysterious, these haunting images led many to praise him as the most American of painters.”

And perhaps even more noteworthy, five of Hopper’s works from the exhibition inspired a new opera (get it, Hoppera?) that coincides with the exhibit: “Later the Same Evening.” Written by composer John Musto and librettist Mark Campbell and performed by musicians from the University of Maryland’s Opera Studio, the world premiere of the opera was performed in November at UM’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and garnered rave reviews. A final (and free!) performance will take place at 6:30 p.m. this Sunday, Dec. 2, on a first-come-first-serve basis at the National Gallery of Art.

Unfolding on an early evening in 1932 in a New York apartment, the opera interprets the five artworks—”Room in New York,” “Hotel Window,” “Hotel Room,” “Two on the Aisle,” and “Automat.” The disconnected storylines imagine the lives of the characters in each painting intersecting randomly at a Broadway musical. The stark stage set-up prominently features the paintings, each one illuminated by spotlight at key moments in the performance as the singers freeze-frame momentarily to mirror the scenes.

“All the singers were uniformly excellent,” wrote the Washington Post’s

music critic Cecelia Porter. “Kudos are also deserved for the versatile true-to-life sets, with their stunning projections of the paintings, the penetrating fluorescent illumination, and the Hopperesque costuming.”

Lucky enough not only to have attended the performance at the University of Maryland but also to be a friend of the red-dress-clad woman (Claire Kuttler) in “Room in New York,” I highly recommend staking out a seat at the show Sunday.

The Hopper exhibit at the National Gallery of Art will close January 21, 2008.

Photo: Cory Weaver