Costumes: Another Reason to Love Opera

The musical art form presents not just an auditory experience but a visual one as well.

Group portrait of operatic society members in full costume onstage. Public Domain

Opera costumes are likely the second reason fans love the art form. Fabulous singing is why they happily purchase the ticket, but opera is an art that includes many art forms: orchestral music, ballet, and stunningly painted and beautifully crafted sets. It has something for everyone. Right up there in second place is costuming; it can range from fabulous to shocking and everything in between.

Costumes run the gamut from the ridiculous to the sublime. To begin with the sublime, the successful, late-1800s soprano Emma Abbott understood the power of beautiful costumes. “The costumes purchased during the summer of ’90 by Miss Abbott were not only the most elegant and costly ever bought by her, but exceeded both in cost and beauty any ever seen on any stage,” said author Sadie E. Martin in “The Life and Professional Career of Emma Abbott.”

Soprano Emma Abbott appearing as the Queen of Spain in the Victor Hugo-based opera "Ruy Blas." Public Domain

Over $100,000 were spent on accessories and costumes. Abbott’s audiences looked forward to the sumptuous gowns, according to Martin. “Many of her dresses were embroidered in gold and silver thread, others had yards upon yards of heavily jeweled garniture, with beads and buttons of real gold plate,” she said. Abbott purchased the most elegant fabrics that European looms had to offer.

Sublime and opulent to a physically challenging degree describes the costume that soprano superstar Leontyne Price wore in the Metropolitan Opera’s 1966 world premiere of Samuel Barber’s “Antony and Cleopatra.” The extravaganza was also the inaugural performance in the Met’s new opera house, and it included live horses, goats, and a camel, in addition to lavish costumes. But not everyone was impressed.

Some of Price’s Cleopatra costumes looked to weigh in the 40- to 50-pound range, and there was also a headdress. “Cleopatra’s most challenging obstacles were her grotesque costumes, ponderous creations that virtually imprisoned her,” said music critic Peter G. Davis in a 2009 New York Times article. In the same article, director Franco Zeffirelli described the costume: “She will look like one of the greatest widows in the world, like a giant praying mantis.”

Leontyne Price opened the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center in a lavish production of Samuel Barber's "Antony and Cleopatra." Photo by Louis Melançon. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera

For pure outrageousness, soprano Beverly Sills’s Queen of the Night costume for the Houston Grand Opera’s 1966 production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” ranks right at the top. Luckily, the queen has two fantastic coloratura arias, which require no movement other than vocal gymnastics. The extraordinary 5-feet-something reach of the wired netting that extended out and up like a nightmarish, dark corona from behind her shoulders and head must have eliminated any movement other than glacial stares. She probably couldn’t move her head either, with her 3-foot-tall, three-pointed crown.

Legendary diva Maria Callas wore stunning costumes as Elisabetta in Giuseppe Verdi’s “Don Carlo” at La Scala in 1954. One velvet, black gown had a high, ruffled neckline and swaths of gold embroidery down the front and trimming the sleeves. The design, by Nicola Benois, was based on historical research and included ruby mirror stones and embossed wire cords.

Another stunning Benois creation was Callas’s costume for a 1956 production of “Fedora” by Umberto Giordano. Ivory and gold brocade with a center panel embroidered with geometric designs was adorned with glass and crystal beads.

Diamonds—3,700 of them—puts 19th-century diva Adelina Patti in first place for opulence. She wore her diamond-encrusted “Aida” costume for a Covent Garden production of Verdi’s opera. They are estimated to be worth $20 million today. What became of that creation is not clear.

‘Turandot’

The gorgeous and fantastical headpieces for “Turandot,” the soprano in the title role of Giacomo Puccini’s final opera, are worthy of a room in a museum. The Museo del Tessuto (textile museum) in Prato, Italy, thought so, too. An exhibition titled “Turandot and the Fantastic East by Puccini, Chini and Caramba” displayed the headpiece and “a nucleus of costumes and stage jewels dating back to the world premiere of Puccini’s ’Turandot,'” according to the publication Finestre sull’Arte. Long, white plume-like feathers fan out behind round, ornate, silver medallions topped with silver butterfly pins, and all are attached to a silver headband.

Cecil Beaton created soprano Birgit Nilsson’s 1961 Metropolitan Opera “Turandot” headpiece. It had beaded, bejeweled golden rods fanning out from her head with dangles ending in golden drops. The bloodred, gold-embroidered robe completed the stunning vision.

Birgit Nilsson as Turandot. The Cecil Beaton-designed costume will be on display at a costume exhibition in conjunction with the Metropolitan Opera's 2025–2026 season. Photo by Louis Melançon. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera Archives

Theatro Municipal of São Paulo’s Turandot wore brilliant blue feathers with peacock plumes fanning out. The equally brilliant blue, satiny robe was embroidered with sparkling, ornate designs.

“Ridiculous” is an apt description of the human-sized, purple plastic egg suit that mezzo soprano Marilyn Horne had to wear for her La Scala debut. She sang the role of Jocasta in Igor Stravinsky’s “Oedipus Rex” and remembered in her book “Marilyn Horne: My Life” that “The motif of the entire production was eggs. Jocasta was literally encased in a purple plastic egg.”

She recalled her misery: “Surrounded by this plastic case, with only my head visible, I had no choice but to be static.” Unable to move her arms and legs, she was also rendered deaf by the covering.

“When conductor Claudio Abbado stopped me in the middle of one solo and said, ‘Can’t you hear what your music is?’ I rolled down to the front of the stage and answered, ‘My music? I can’t hear what this opera is!’” That problem was solved, and she received favorable reviews but said of the stifling apparatus, “Things got so hot, I almost hatched!”

Marilyn Horne as Jocasta, in a purple plastic egg suit, in Stravinsky's "Oedipus Rex." Photo of image by E. Piccagliani from the book "Marilyn Horne: My Life," by Marilyn Horne with Jane Scovell. Courtesy of Helena Elling

The thrill is in viewing the creativity. Whether the costumes are divine or dismal, as long as the singing is sublime, true opera fans love it all.

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