Designs fit for an opera diva

Armani, Lagerfeld, Prada, Versace — some of fashion’s leading designers have ventured into the world of opera, dressing divas and devils at venues such as La Scala and the Met. The trend, which began in the ‘80s, “has gone crescendo,” says Helena Matheopoulos, who describes the couture-costume connection in the new book “Fashion Designers at the Opera” (Thames & Hudson).

The London-based Matheopoulos, a former Tatler fashion editor and author of several opera books, focuses on a dozen designers. Besides mini-profiles and interviews, she presents more than 200 images, including a trove of sketches that, she says, “really give an idea of the person who sketches them” — be it the late Gianni Versace, whose stage creations reflected his “flexibility and perfectionism,” or “Ungaro, Lacroix, Lagerfeld, Bohan, who work operatically.”

Matheopoulos attributes the rise in collaborations to “a revolution” in which fashion has become spectacle and opera — post-Maria Callas — has embraced “dramatic credibility” and replaced “the fat ladies of yesteryear” with singers who “look as beautiful as they sound.” Opera houses love the audiences and buzz that big names generate. Directors value the creative combustion the right partnership can inspire.

Onstage, designers have more freedom to follow their imaginations sans industry pressures and to pursue interests in period and style. Karl Lagerfeld, for instance, elegantly evoked the 18th century in Renée Fleming’s scenes from Massenet’s “Manon” at a 2008 Metropolitan Opera gala.

Though their runway offerings require attention to quality and detail, Matheopoulos says couturiers had to learn to produce wardrobes that “made a splash from afar” with an eye to singers’ physical needs and other practical concerns. Although they were used to being their own bosses, she adds, a number of her subjects told her “they actually enjoyed subjugating their egos to that of their directors.’”

“Fashion Designers” begins with Giorgio Armani, who provided clothing from his collections for Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte” at Covent Garden in 1995. (Locally, performers wore Armani in Los Angeles Opera’s 2000 production of Verdi’s “Rigoletto.” Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte will design costumes for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s May staging of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.”)

The book ends with Viktor & Rolf — Dutch duo Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren — whose fanciful pieces for Weber’s “Der Freischütz” at Baden-Baden in 2009 prompted director Robert Wilson to declare, “They brought their own world to my world.”

A different blending of worlds is epitomized by Christian Lacroix, whose many opera designs include Poppea’s dramatic blue coat in Handel’s “Agrippina” in Berlin in 2010. “It is so now somebody should be wearing it in the streets,” Matheopoulos says. “It shows how close fashion and opera have become.”

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