#opera illustration

[beckmessering]

so. here’s my @operablr-secret-santa gift for @supercantaloupe 💛

it’s an ✨𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓅𝓇𝑒𝓉𝒶𝓉𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝓅𝒶𝒾𝓃𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔✨ of rigoletto’s 2nd act. (details are below the cut)

i have been on a roll with anatomical hearts this year & i’ve made a whole series lol so here we go. personally, i think “piangi, fanciulla” is one of the most touching parts of the whole opera. it really encapsulates what it means to be a parent: you might be doing shittily, and be sick with worry, but if your kid is doing badly and needs your stability, you do anything you can to offer it to them. so i drew this heart, cut it out w/ an empty space, and stapled it back to the original drawing paper on black background.

stapling is a method of wound closure, which metaphorically stands for both rigoletto’s and gilda’s fraught, emotionally injured state. they’re both mentally banged up quite a bit, in different ways. at the same time, stapling as a method doesn’t seem as neat as stitching. it always ends up kind of rough. when we staple paper, we slam our hand on the stapler, quickly, and when we staple wounds, we do it because it’s faster than stitching. stapling is for mass casualty situations. it’s for when your kid needs to cry and so do you, but you’re the parent and you have to have your shit together and be the stable one, so you slam your hand on the stapler and tell your daughter it’s okay, she can cry.

[waiting-for-autumn]

Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore

Fan art of Puccini's Tosca.

I work for an opera theatre during the summer and love Tosca.

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT/CROP/REPOST ANYWHERE WITHOUT PERMISSION

[beckmessering]

brünnhilde, teenage girl that she is, lounging on a rock before collecting another hero’s body.

(as you do)

[beckmessering]

Exhibit B, or: Siegmund’s Knees Are Still A Scraped Disaster, But At Least Everything’s Finally Okay In The Afterlife.

(am slowly running out of wall space so i need new procrastination methods but whatever)