Degas at the Opéra, The Orchestra of the Opéra, 1870

KIMBERLY JONES: In the background you see this wonderful sort of shifting and movement of the dancers onstage, who are half cut-off. It’s not about the dancers, it’s about the musicians who are making the music and are here, for once, taking center stage. KAYWIN FELDMAN: The work was a portrait, commissioned by Désiré Dihau, a musician in the opera orchestra and a friend of Degas. Dihau is the single bassoonist sitting at the center of the front row. KIMBERLY JONES: When Degas sat down to paint his portrait of his friend, he chose this very unconventional approach, showing him in his workplace, showing him doing what he loves and what he was best at, and that was performing music. KAYWIN FELDMAN: Degas meticulously depicted various instruments—of course Dihau’s bassoon but also edges of violins, a cello, and the neck of a double bass. The composition, however, is pure fiction. In reality, there would have been four bassoonists, not one, seated with the other woodwind instruments behind the strings section. Their backs would have been turned to the audience as they faced the conductor at the edge of the stage. KIMBERLY JONES: He did drawings of individual elements and then composed it all, allowing his creativity to construct the scene that feels very real, that exults in the reality of the implied image without actually ever being a true event that Degas saw. KAYWIN FELDMAN: Nineteenth-century audiences might have recognized other figures from the Parisian music scene. In a theater box to the left of the stage, we can see the head of a man watching the dancers—he is the composer Emmanuel Chabrier. He’s less well known today but his music had a huge influence on the next generation of French composers, including Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy. And over at the far left of the orchestra, the man with the distinctive beard and glasses is cellist Louis-Marie Pilet. His individual portrait is also on view in this gallery.