Christophe Laudamiel Co-Signs Scent Opera at the Guggenheim, May 31-June 1 2009 {The 5th Sense in the News}

Perfumer Christophe Laudamiel, who has left major fragrance company IFF to become an independent consultant and dedicate his time to the pursuit of fragrance as art is co-signing a sound-and-smell opus called a "scent opera" and entitled Green Aria. The event will take place at the Guggenheim on May 31 and June 1 2009. The Wall Street Journal reports about the background story, but before here is a definition of what a "scent opera" is and how it works,

"The 'ScentOpera' is a new dramatic form that opens the possibilities of extending the Wagnerian vision and is a precursor to the complete multi-sensory art form integrating all of the senses with the arts, thereby creating the complete 'works' or 'opera'. A 'ScentOpera' is principally limited to only two senses - smell and hearing. The first ScentOpera, Green Aria, is performed in a setting in which the audience is invited to leave the audiovisual world behind and enter a new medium, arom-audio. Volume, depth, temperature, color, sensation and feeling are interleaved in an emergent form of storytelling delivered through scent and music."...

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Journalist Alexandra Alter reports about the ins and outs of the Green Aria project,

"Most high-end perfumers spend months designing a signature scent they hope will stay on the market forever.

Christophe Laudamiel, who wants to turn fragrance into high art, has labored for two years on 23 scents that will last for just half an hour.

Mr. Laudamiel, a French fragrance designer who has created perfumes for Clinique, Estée Lauder, Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors, is collaborating on a "scent opera," a new performance art that pairs music with a carefully orchestrated sequence of smells, some pleasant and some real stinkers. The opera, titled "Green Aria," will test the boundaries of scent art when it opens at the Guggenheim Museum in New York May 31."

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