#bad opera

Dining with the cast of Bad Opera, the latest published work by Kapital and Eric Kvatek one late July in Budapest. Featuring,KiroEricEmmelieTimmiKoheiPierreEvaHeenPonytailWedge Shot by Lauren.  On Eric’s camera.

FAVOURITES FROM KAPITAL’S BAD OPERA RELEASE

One soggy summer, team Kapital, our pal Eric Kvatek, a bunch of fresh faced Hungarian models, an all-woman army Eva Bajomi, and myself met in Budapest to dance the Kapital Autumn Winter 17 ho-down that became, “Bad Opera”.  This theme of the ho-down was a beer fuelled idea of photographer Eric one night in LA, weeks previously master-minded in a dive bar (where most of Eric’s best scheming is…

    Norma-Jean Erdmann-Chadbourne, painted by her brother, Richard Erdmann in 1931. Norma-Jean was 31 years old at the time this painting was done during a visit by her brother to her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

    Norma-Jean was an opera singer, a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music. She married Ellis Chadbourne who was a lawyer by profession, but he decided to try his hand at singing and teaching proper vocal technique. His skills are somewhat... questionable. As a result, he and Norma-Jean’s English version of the Tomb Song from Aïda was included on a recent album with Florence Foster Jenkins.

    From one of the reviews of the album:

Almost good can be more amusing than truly terrible. Norma-Jean Erdmann-Chadourne, a Boston singer of repute in the 1930s, presents the final scene from ''Aida" with the remnants of voice and style, opposite her completely ungifted husband, both singing in an English translation that would provoke mirth if it had been well sung. The artistic impulses of Alice Gerstl Dushak, one of the early teachers of Jessye Norman, remained vital in her 83d year, although her voice was by then a wreck.

From the liner notes of the album above:

Mme. Erdmann-Chadbourne’s voice was presented on several obscure LP discs, perhaps the most interesting of which is entitled “Messa di Voce.” It was produced in conjunction with a book, “The Art of Messa di Voce: Scientific Singing,” written by Norma-Jean and her husband, Ellis Chadbourne. [...] Interestingly enough, although she is supposedly demonstrating the use of Messa di Voce on this recording, experts have failed to detect a single instance of her actually using the technique at any point.

[...]

Norma-Jean was not fortunate in her choice of mates, for Chadbourne’s personality overwhelmed her. Who knows what she might have achieved had she not married the man she did? Earlier he had taught at the college level, then became an attorney with higher aspirations. He organized several youth groups that he used to grandstand for political power; eventually he was disbarred (it is said because he became improperly involved with some of the youths from his groups.) Perhaps this is why he was given to the use of false names. At some fatal point he decided he could sing, and fancied himself a world expert on the true method of vocal production. He careened from one method to another, eventually returning to the Messa di Voce method with which he had started. Through all this he dragged poor Norma-Jean along with him.

[...]

La Norma-Jean’s last traced concert was in Carnegie Hall on April 25, 1954 as assisting artist to heldentenor Kenneth Lane, but she continued teaching and preaching vocal methods, reverting to proclaiming Messa di Voce at the end of her life.

WGSN on Kapital book that I shot in Hungary...

My photos for Kapital f/w 2016, “Bad Opera” on Heddels

KAPITAL AT THE BAD OPERA.

To enter into the wild world of Kapital is a little like stepping into a twisted wonderland, one that has its own gravitational force that has you walking upwards, backwards, inside, and outwards.  Its a Universe that revolves around people, and the wonderment of diversity.  So let me take you into the friend making, beer soaked experience that is the Kapital catalogue shoot, one that never…