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The evolution of the close bond between the visual arts and opera starting from the nineteenth century up to the early twenty-first century.

The intertwining of visual and musical arts at the beginning of the 20th century led to modernism, abstraction and in music, atonality. This meeting of the arts was never so intense as on the operatic stage. In her book Painting the Stage, curator and art and music critic Denise Wendel-Poray first examines historic productions beginning with Schinkels iconic stage design for Mozarts Magic Flute, before exploring those of the 20th century with Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes and the implication of avant-garde artists in opera up until World War II.

Directly after the armistice of 1945, famous artists such as André Derain, Balthus, Dalí, André Masson, and Kokoschka reopened the theaters amidst ruins, thus ushering in a new era of optimism.

The event of pop art, happenings, and experimental theatre with the collaboration of artists Robert Indiana, David Hockney, Robert Wilson brought on further developments in the realm of opera. Finally, interviews with world famous artists such as Anselm Kiefer, William Kentridge, Bill Viola, Robert Longo, Jonathan Meese, and Daniel Richter show how their contribution to the genre is making opera today more than ever a form of total art or Gesamtkunstwerk and a hotbed of contemporary creation.

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Denise Wendel-Poray is a Canadian writer and critic holding degrees from Yale University in Connecticut, and McGill University in Montreal. Formerly an opera singer, she performed principal roles throughout Europe (Covent Garden, l´Opéra de la Bastille, Théâtre du Châtelet). She is the author of several books and essays concerning the relationship between art, theatre and music. (Frauen-Liebe und Leben, Hatje-Cantz, 2013) She has been curator and music adviser for the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, Germany, and guest lecturer on stage décor at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf. She lives and works in Paris.

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