CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 6/6/2015

David Leventi: Opera

"Curtain, Teatro Colon," Buenos Aires, Argentina (2010), is reproduced from Opera, Damiani's highly anticipated collection of David Leventi's exquisite, large-format photographs of international opera houses. With rich introductory texts by Plácido Domingo and Marvin Heiferman and fascinating, even dishy descriptions of each of the opera houses by Thomas Mellins, this book is much more than the sum of its parts, and strangely difficult to put down. Heiferman writes, "What distinguishes and complicates Leventi’s images are the passion and order they celebrate, the synesthesia they summon up, and the questions about opera’s continuity they raise. Ultimately, it is the photographer’s firmly fixed perspective that encourages our eyes and minds to alight here and there, look this way and that, and to contemplate the legacy and power of opera through the lens of his own tour-de-force performance."