Shara Hughes

Celebrated American artist Shara Hughes is no stranger to the Metropolitan Opera, having created vibrant banner art pegged to Dvořák’s Rusalka and a video short inspired by Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. For her new Met commission, Hughes was given the entire 2024–25 season schedule and essentially told, “Have at it!” The result is a breathtaking collection of paintings that hang on the Grand Tier, Dress Circle, and Family Circle levels of the opera house throughout the season, in an exhibition curated by Gallery Met director Dodie Kazanjian.

“I decided to read up about the operas I haven’t seen yet, and I researched as much as possible about the new productions,” Hughes explains. “I ended up depicting Moby-Dick, Antony and Cleopatra, The Magic Flute, and The Queen of Spades.”

While Hughes’s Queen of Spades piece focuses on the strong heroine of the opera, and the Magic Flute artwork responds to Mozart’s juxtaposition of day and night, both Antony and Cleopatra and Moby-Dick were inspired by nature.

“I used plants and flowers that are toxic and dangerous but intertwined in a turbulent and heated landscape,” Hughes says of her piece Tragic Love, based on Antony and Cleopatra. “The love depicted is between two cactuses with flowers embracing.” Moby-Dick inspired two paintings. “The large painting is dramatic, attention-grabbing, and dynamic”—not to mention an absolute stunner in its spot on the landing of the Grand Tier staircase—“and there’s also a serene, smaller painting,” the artist states. “In the larger painting, Moby, the viewer is overpowered, whereas in Nature’s Rock, the smaller work, the viewing experience is intimate. I wanted to highlight the drama between these different takes.”

Hughes, whose work is in the permanent collections of the Met Museum and the Whitney, among other prestigious institutions worldwide, says she loves collaborating with the opera house. “I think there’s a storytelling aspect to my work that can nod to each opera without being too illustrative,” she says. “I can put myself within these operas in a way that’s both imaginative and abstract.”

Queen of Spades
Oil, acrylic, and dye on canvas
96” x 66”

Nature’s Rock
Oil, acrylic, and dye on canvas
48” x 40”

The Magic Flute
Oil, acrylic, and dye on canvas
78” x 66”

Tragic Love
Oil, acrylic, and dye on canvas
48” x 40”

Photography by Tom Powell
Photography by JSP Art Photography