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'Magnolias' remade
Gayby boomer
Out &About
Black is back
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O&A
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The
www.ebar.com/arts
Vol. 42 • No. 40 • October 4-10, 2012
IT’S ✳ LACROIX,✳ ✳ ✳ ✳ SWEETIE ✳ DARLING! ✳ ✳
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Behind the scenes at the San Francisco Opera Costume Shop ★ by Sura Wood ★
Joyce DiDonato (Romeo) and Nicole Cabell (Giulietta, in the bubble dress) in Christian Lacroix’s designs for San Francisco Opera’s The Capulets and the Montagues.
J
Cory Weaver
uliet standing on her balcony in a bubble dress? Romeo navigating the streets of Verona in a slick, distressed lambskin, motorcycle jacket? You thought you’d never live to see this day, but it has arrived courtesy of French haute couturier Christian Lacroix’s costumes for San Francisco Opera’s The Capulets and the Montagues. The Vincenzo Bellini opera, based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, is a
co-production with the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, where it premiered last year. Lacroix is not the first or only fashion icon to heed opera’s siren call. Versace, Lagerfeld, Prada, Armani, Zandra Rhodes, and of course, Bob Mackie, who brought old Hollywood glitz to SFO’s 1998 production of Lulu, are among the famous fashionistas who have plunged into the storied world of divas and spear-carriers.
The 61-year-old Lacroix was a hot property on Parisian runways in the 1980s, when the bubble skirt catapulted him to stardom, and later, in the 1990s, when the British television series Absolutely Fabulous made him a household name. But after closing his couture house three years ago, he became fully engaged in designing for theater, opera and the ballet, enraptured with the grand stage those arenas
afford; since 2003, he has created costumes for over 15 opera productions. “One of the great things about him is that he never thought about fashion or clothing, he always thought about costume and history, which is evident in his own collections,” says Christopher Verdosci, assistant costume director for the San Francisco See page 37 >>
Give my regards to Mill Valley!
The film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road arrives.
35th Mill Valley Film Festival highlights, week 1 by David Lamble
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he 35th edition of the Mill Valley Film Festival (Oct. 4-14 at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, Cinearts@Sequoia, the 142 Throckmorton Theatre, and the Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley) is aiming for the sweet spot on your bat with a star lineup that includes Dustin Hoffman (his directing debut, Quartet), Billy Bob Thornton (Jayne Mansfield’s Car), Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay!), John Hawkes (The Sessions) and the team from DreamWorks Animation (Rise of the Guardians).
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On the Road On page 44 of the novel, Jack Kerouac’s narrator/alter ego Sal Paradise observes his best buds Dean and Carlo sitting “on the bed cross-legged and [looking] straight at each other. They began with an abstract thought, discussed it; reminded each other of another abstract point forgotten in the rush of events. “’We’ll just have to sleep now. Let’s stop the machine.’ “’You can’t stop the machine!’ yelled See page 36 >>