Cultural Cocktail Hour
Venice Italy Summer 2012- Cultural Cocktail Hour’s Top 3 Picks including exclusive behind-the-scenes video at La Chiesa San Vidal
The Venetian Cultural Cocktail recipe is 2 oz Gothic, a shot of violins, and an intoxicating golden liquor otherwise known as Gustav Klimt!
Cultural Cocktail Hour‘s Travel Tips for Venetian exhibits
Summer 2012
by Leticia Marie Sanchez
All Photography, text, and video © 2012 Leticia Marie Sanchez
Cultural Cocktail Hour® is a registered trademark
Pick #1 Interpreti Veneziani
Chiesa San Vidal – 30124 Venezia
These talented, passionate performers interpret Baroque, Classical, and Modern works almost daily at the Chiesa San Vidal. Cultural Cocktail Hour takes you briefly inside the Chiesa San Vidal, named after Doge Vitale Falier. This now deconsecrated church once never seemed to catch a break. It was rebuilt after the ravaging fires of 1105 and 1696. The new facade, built in the 18th century, housed works by Carpaccio and Piazzetta. Now, the once forsaken church has been revitalized by the music of Interpreti Veneziani. One can hear Vivaldi emanating from the walls, almost every night. Make sure to turn your volume up, so that you can hear the perpetual streaming Vivaldi inside the church!
Pick #2: Diana Vreeland Exhibit at the Palazzo Fortuny
Closes June 25
Palazzo Fortuny
Campo San Beneto, Venice
Far from the maddening Murano-goldfish trinket coveting crowd is a quiet palazzo with Gothic touches that Edgar Allen Poe himself could have never imagined.Waxen heads of bloodthirsty criminals peer out from behind glass. A horror film is screened continuously on the ground floor, where one half expects Jack-the Ripper to alight from a creaky beam. Gothic touches juxtapose with the current temporary exhibit on Diana Vreeland, one of the most elegant women of her time.
As the Editor-in-Chief of Vogue magazine and consultant for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ms. Vreeland personified modern chic. And yet, the Gothic vibe flowing through the rest of the museum has its place in the Vreeland exhibit. The Gothic genre revolves around high drama. So do the fantastical costumes. They include: a red cape worn by Marie Callas, an Yves Saint Laurent “Mondrian” Dress, an 18th century Japanese wedding gown, 16th century armor, a Cristobal Balenciaga Black Satin gown with ostrich feathers, Henri Matisse costumes for the Ballet Russes.
The exhibit displayed an ambitious quotation from Ms. Vreeland in her youth:
“Diana was a goddess,
and I must live up
to that name…
I dare…
make myself
exactly how I want to be.”
Pick #3:
Gustav Klimt in the Sign of Hoffmann and the Secession
Museo Correr. Piazza San Marco, 52
Closing July 8th
Gustav Klimt fans will not want to miss this immersion into the world of the Austrian Symbolist painter. In addition to exploring Klimt’s fruitful collaboration with architect Josef Hoffman, the exhibit focuses on the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk– the integration of architecture, painting, applied arts, and sculpture in shaping modern spaces unified under the concept of “Total Work of Art.” No where is this more apparent than in the glorious “Beethoven Frieze” which was based on Based on Wagner’s interpretation of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, specifically Friedrich Von Schiller’s Ode to Joy, which provided inspiration for the fourth movement. The original plan was to destroy the frieze after the 1902 exhibit, resulting in Klimt’s use of cheap materials like buttons and tacks painted on plaster. Thankfully, the Frieze was not tossed aside, and we still have it one hundred and ten years later, in all its golden splendor.
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