Riccardo Tisci’s Costumes For Marina Abramović’s Opera Are Nothing Short Of Dazzling

“I’ve found my soul mate,” Riccardo Tisci once remarked, of the performance artist Marina Abramović. Speaking in an interview with the Financial Times, Tisci and Abramović recorded a symbiotic relationship; they have since collaborated a number of times. But their relationship is more than merely professional: during an interview with British Vogue in 2017, Tisci revealed that Marina was, along with the Pope, Cicciolina and Michelle Obama, his ideal guest for his “ultimate dinner party”.

It comes as no surprise, then, Abramović has realised her latest opera project, 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, with the help of the Italian designer and chief creative officer of Burberry. “I am a romantic dreamer at my core, so this was a very easy project to get involved with,” Tisci revealed in a statement. “She [Marina] is one of the world’s most daring and brave artists, and it’s an incredible honour to collaborate with her once again on a subject that is so close to both of our hearts.”

According to Marina, her latest creative endeavour has been in the pipeline for over 30 years and its launch follows a lifelong study of the famous opera singer, Maria Callas. She first discovered the operatic luminary at the age of 14 and found an immediate kinship with the performer. As she recently told the New York Times: “I was mesmerised, and I had goose pimples, and total electricity in my body”.

Together with the composer Marko Nikodijević, Abramović hoped to illustrate the varied emotions that Callas brought to her operatic performances. The on-stage version of 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, which also takes the form of a film featuring the actor William Dafoe, includes the the late singer’s scenes from Carmen, Tosca, Otello, Madama Butterfly, Norma, Lucia Di Lammermoor and La Traviata. 

Five of the featured operas are also the names of Tisci’s costumes that he created especially for the performance. Among them: “Carmen,” a vibrant scarlet gown worn with a crepe Toledo jacket embellished with light-catching crystals and fringing; “Norma,” a white silk crepe de chine shirt and black grain de poudre wool trousers worn with a hand-fringed oversized scarf; and the finale look, a sequined gold high-neck dress, which Marina can be seen wearing in fitting shots on Tisci’s Instagram feed.

“To die from a broken heart is the thread which draws together each opera in a project which is centred around love and its forms, as much as my relationship with Riccardo,” Marina revealed. “Riccardo had to make all the costumes because we are love, he is fashion and I am art, two worlds that cross over in a creative dialogue of love, respect and freedom.”

When Tisci was at the helm of Givenchy, he was asked to mastermind the costumes for Boléro, a short production for which Abramović designed the set and scenography in 2013. Abramović has also advised the sets of Tisci’s fashion shows, including a moving performance that she staged for his spring/summer 2016 New York Fashion Week showcase, which coincided with the 14th anniversary of 9/11.

‘7 Deaths of Maria Callas’ will premiere at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich on 1 September and will be live streamed on Staatsoper.Tv on 5 September 2020 at 5:30pm BST. It will also be available to watch on demand for 30 days from 7th September 2020.