Orchestra Musicians

Orchestra Musicians, painted around 1872 and now at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, is a significant work in Degas's series of Opéra subjects that examines the complex spatial and social world of the theater. Like L'Orchestre de l'Opéra, it divides the picture plane between the orchestral foreground — musicians with their instruments — and the stage above, where dancers appear as luminous fragments. Degas was fascinated by the hidden institutional infrastructure of performance: the musicians who create the music that animates the dancers, working in semi-darkness while the performers above inhabit the light. The work was originally purchased by the composer Emmanuel Chabrier, a friend of Degas and fellow devotee of the Opéra.

The tonal split between the dark orchestral pit and the illuminated stage above is even more dramatic here than in some of Degas's other orchestra subjects. The musicians' dark formal clothing, their instruments, and the surrounding darkness create a rich, complex lower register, against which the brightly lit dancers above appear almost as visions. Degas renders the individual musicians with portrait-like specificity while the stage remains atmospheric and suggestive.