ALESSANDRO MAGANIA
Concept and direction Alessandro Magania
Director of photography Plamen Petkov
With Anthony Roth Costanzo, Koosil Ja, Veleriya Poulunina
Arrangements Anthony Roth Costanzo
Harpsichord and Piano Valeriya Polunina
Sound recording David Pym
Special thanks Hank Heijink, James Ivory, Travis Just, Irina Kruzhilina, Kim Macron, Daniel Allen Nelson,
Simo Peretti, Max Tannone, Robert Warner.
duration 4:13 mins
Commissioned by art and fashion publication Visionaire for their 25 year anniversary, this video takes as point of departure their 37th issue, for which they published a collection of memos written by Diana Vreeland during her tenure as editor of Vogue in the 60s and early 70s. I wanted to highlight the poetry of Vreeland’s outlandish, yet sometimes terse language alone, so I decided to disassociate it completely from Her and fashion, and make it into opera. I asked the amazing countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo to collaborate with me, and (with a little help from Handel and Scarlatti) arrange some of the memos as snippets of baroque opera. We then staged them and shot it as if capturing a rehearsal for our imaginary, highly dramatic, opera.