David Leventi – Bjoerling’s Larynx

www.davidleventi.com

Bjoerling’s Larynx records the interiors of world-famous opera houses, all photographed with 4×5” and 8×10” Arca-Swiss cameras to maximize detail. Architecturally meticulous, this body of work serves to historically document these national and cultural landmarks.

The project is titled after Jussi Björling, a Swedish operatic tenor and arguably the best singer of the century – known for his technique, feeling and the range of his voice. Bjoerling debuted at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm and eventually became a principal at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. These two spaces – and the others that I have photographed thus far – are the spaces in which my grandfather, Anton Gutman, never got the chance to perform. Gutman was a cantor trained right after World War II by Helge Rosvaenge, a famous Danish operatic tenor who sang regularly with the State Operas in Berlin and Vienna. While Gutman was interned in a prisoner-of-war camp in the Soviet Union, he performed for prisoners and officers. Nearly a half-century later, I grew up listening to him sing while he walked around our living room. As the son of two architects, I experience an almost religious feeling walking into a grand space such as an opera house.”

continue reading on his website and watch the rest of the series among another great story about Romania and his relatives history from my country.


Palais Garnier, Paris, France, 2009


La Fenice, Venice, Italy, 2008


Romanian Athenaeum, Bucharest, Romania, 2007


Hungarian State Opera House, Budapest, Hungary, 2008


Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Germany, 2009


Teatro Amazonas, Manaus, Brazil, 2009

via flakphoto