Musetta visits New York, Vienna, Zurich
We live in a world obsessed with exterior beauty and youth. Advertising and TV shows dictate how a beautiful woman should look like, causing anxieties and feelings of inadequacy amongst many women. What would you wish for, if you had the power to change things? Big breasts, small waist, eternal youth? This diva wants it all! Breasts so big, they almost touch the ground and her cleavage is armored with teeth to devour everything in sight. What an utterly sexual superwoman has this society created! And when she turns around, out of her back there is a gigantic hand protruding, a hand with long red fingernails which drags along the ground. She is not aware of this extra limb, as it is a manifestation of her wish for control, her desire to slow down the passage of time, to stay forever young!
On her walk through the streets the Muse sings the aria from Puccini’s opera La Boheme Quando men vo soletta per la via, (when I walk alone through the streets). She approaches every man and sings to him. The aria is enhancing how we experience her: She is an utterly dangerous man-eating woman monster who is bathing in her sexuality.
This project was partially commissioned by the Austrian Cultural Institute New York under the directorship of Andreas Stadler for the show Beauty Contest. The show then traveled to Vienna to be expanded at the MUSA museum Vienna.
Walzing by the Vienna Staatsoper
The diva on her visits to Vienna, New York and Zurich. Will your city be next?
Won’t you come play with me?
Video of the Performance on Times Square, New York, 2011
The utterly dangerous man-eating diva in Times Square, New York. She is so irresistible, any man who comes too close to her runs the danger of being seduced and finally even devoured alive. Her appetite is insatiable, but, oh, she is so beautiful and she sings so, so lovely!
The Muse in depth:
