Dress Rehearsal Chronicles
Intro
The Dress Rehearsal Chronicles is a series of large-sized drawings (14 by 5 feet) on upholstery fabric that explore the backstage world of the opera. The images reveal perspectives from the other side of the audience, where the fictional characters and theater workers “live out” the operas in a manner that reminds us of the age old question: “Does life imitate art, or vice versa?”
Fabric patterns and colors for each piece were chosen based on the ambience of each opera. Each drawing depicts a world where the power of the play captures people on all sides of the stage. When the singers/actors perform, there are people working from above, below, behind, and in front of the stage. The musicians in the orchestra pit have the meticulous task of synchronizing sound and performance. The stage workers transform a castle into a cliff, light the moon or start a storm. These individuals are trapped in the implacable time mechanism of the opera story.
Each piece hangs freely from a curtain rod with no stretchers or any kind of preparation to keep the drape of the fabric natural. Extra fabric at the bottom of each drawing gathers on the floor and gives the pieces the look of a theater prop.
This book presents four pieces inspired by the operas Tosca, Les contes d’Hoffmann, Billy Budd and The Medium.
Videos
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DRC, Tosca (redo)
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DRC, The Medium (redo)
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DRC, Les contes d’Hoffmann (redo)
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Rafael Landea received his MFA from La Plata University, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a 2011 recipient of a San Francisco Arts Commission Grant for Individual Artists and he was featured in the 2012 “Our Radar”, Creative Capital database of art projects.
His works are included in the public collections at MaM (Museum of Art and Memory), and MPB (Fine Arts Museum Buenos Aires) Argentina.
His most recent solo exhibitions were “1930” Buenos Aires Holocaust Museum, “Maps of Silence”, a multimedia installation at the Exploratorium Museum of Art Science and Human Perception in San Francisco, and “Malvinas” Museum Malvinas (ESMA) Buenos Aires.
Other solo exhibition venues include Grace Cathedral 1055 Gallery, San Francisco, CA, and, Archimboldo Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Group exhibition highlights include “Performance” at Gensler San Francisco, “Madres de Plaza de Mayo” CC Haroldo Conti, Buenos Aires.
Landea has worked as a set designer and painter for theater in Argentina for more than 15 years. He has also been actively involved in designing and producing murals nationally and internationally; the latest in San Francisco, funded by Artery Project, and collaborations in Turin and Genoa, Italy.
In 2019 created two large murals, Architecture University and the Law Library both in La Plata, Argentina.
He has created illustrations for magazines and books for important Argentinean publishers as Anfibia, Malisia, EME, Ediciones B, and Universities, the latest in 2021: “Malvinas mi Casa” a book based on a diary written in 1829 in Malvinas/Falklands.
Landea was selected for the 2020 Prequalified Artist Pool by San Francisco Arts Commission. 
