Description
Here is a newspaper article written about this painting and artist:-
Music, Opera, Art and Design…A Classic Tale.
This is the story of a man who loved his art so much he became a part of trying to bring what was, and still is seen as an unfashionable and elitist artform to the mass market. Alan Sievewright lived and breathed Opera, he counted many of the operatic stars of his day as his personal friends including Luciano Pavarotti, Maria Callas, Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, etc.
Sievewright was born in Edinburgh on 12th May 1934. His family moved to London when he was just a small boy where he studied music and became a boy soprano. Even at an early age he loved the theatre. In his own words “I first went to the theatre at the age of eight. At the age of eleven I stood for five hours to watch Wagner’s Gotterdammerung. I was fortunate enough to grow up in an amazing period where I saw people like Laurence Olivier, The early Kirov and Bolshoi Ballets and the explosive Nureyev.” Even at an early age Sievewright was destined to be “something” in the theatre.
He trained to become a designer and worked initially for Warner Brothers British studios as a costume and set designer, before heading off to Paris to further his training and experience with the top fashion designer Pierre Balmain. Here he was introduced to Marlene Dietrich, who was to become a lifelong friend. By the mid 60’s he had returned to London and became an operatic impresario putting on his own, distinctive and influential range of rarely seen operas, casting the likes of Joan Sutherland, Montserrat Caballe, Elena Suilioutis, etc. in the leading roles. He even gave an international debut to a young Jose Carreras. All 23 of his one-night shows were sell outs!
He later went on to TV production, producing some very well-regarded art documentaries, winning an award for his Maria Callas documentary entitled “Maria” which spawned a hit US TV show starring Jane Seymour in the leading role. In 1990 he launched OnLine Classics, a live performance replication company, as a way to bring more operas to more people. In 2001 he was asked to design and construct a museum to the performing arts at Renishaw Hall in Derbyshire. He contributed many of the artefacts himself.
Alan Sievewright died in January 2007 aged 72. He was a keen theatregoer right to the end!
The picture above is a typical Alan Sievewright costume design and this one is a very distinctive and large watercolour of a dress made for the opera Turandot by Puccini it is signed and dated 1960.
