Nevermind the haterz, Opera Chic loves Julian Schnabel (and hopes he will one day direct opera -- this will be one of OC's first commissions as Sovrintendente of la Scala one day) and she loves his hawt wife and hawt spawn and wonderful films. And the paintings aren't too shabby either (not as hawt as his wife,though).
He spent a day with Placidone, our fave senior citizen baritone (successfully posing as a tenor).
On Thursday Mr. Schnabel painted Peddrick Sheffer, a truck driver
from York, Pa., who had won a Schnabel portrait as part of the
MasterCard “priceless” campaign. (Or not quite priceless: the contest
rules estimated the value of the painting at $350,000.) He played some Willie Nelson tunes to put Mr. Sheffer at ease and also tried to talk him into voting for Barack Obama. “I told him, ‘If you like my work, trust me on this,’ ” Mr. Schnabel said.
On Friday, using a giant, dolly-mounted Polaroid camera from the ’70s, Mr. Schnabel took the B-list actor Mickey Rourke’s photograph for a forthcoming Village Voice article about his new film, “The Wrestler.” And then he painted Plácido Domingo.
That portrait was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera
to commemorate the anniversary of that tenor’s Met debut, and is to be
unveiled at a gala there on Sept. 28, 40 years to the day after Mr.
Domingo, then 27, stepped in for an ailing Franco Corelli and sang the
role of Maurizio in “Adriana Lecouvreur.”
Coming soon: Placidone's statue. Riding a horse.