Transcriber: Sarah Lu Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Hi!
So, how many of you have gone to the opera in the past ten years?
Raise your hand.
Five years?
Last year?
Last week?
Yes!
Okay.
Well, I want to talk to you about opera,
and particularly, you know, the misconceptions about what opera is.
So, when you think about opera,
a lot of people see this lady standing on stage
with her horn hat, just standing there, right?
And an obscure language, for hours on end.
Well, that's not the opera I like,
and I really want to share with you how opera can be exciting.
So, when people ask me, "What do you do for a living?"
I love saying, "I'm an opera set designer,"
not just a "set designer,"
because it immediately engages a conversation.
People usually look at me and they're like,
"Aren't you, like, a little young to be working in such an old art form?"
Well, "old" is a very interesting word because when you think about it,
we don't say "old" for theatre, dance, sculpture.
Opera is actually a little bit over 300 years old.
So, for me, I always see it as a challenge
to get them excited into what it was and what it can be.
I want to take you back to where, you know, it all started.
Originally, when you'd go to the opera, you go out with your friends,
so you get dressed up,
just like you go when you go to a club or a restaurant.
And then you would go into the theatre.
Now, the theatres that you see now are very different to what they were then.
So, you walk into this space, and it's absolutely incredible
because it's all modern art surrounding you, right?
So it's super hip.
You have the latest fashion on stage,
you have your contemporaries writing music.
So all of this creates conversations with your peers.
Where we are now is, you know, we have all these amazing composers
who definitely, just like when a painter paints a painting,
they want to see the art form keep evolving.
So, obviously, these composers were not dead-set on,
"This is the original production, and you must do it for perpetuity."
I want to talk about different interpretations of opera.
So ...
(Laughter)
A lot of us here have grown up with seeing "The Barber of Seville,"
but not actually at the theatre,
but watching the Warner Bros. version with the Looney Tunes.
Right?
So you know opera,
you just haven't necessarily gone to the theatre space and actually seen it live.
One of the reasons why I love opera is it's the olympic of all art forms.
So, for instance, you have live singing,
and I don't know if you know this, but they're not mic'd,
which is incredible, just that in itself.
You have a live orchestra, you have incredible drama on stage,
and then the visuals, you know, you have the sculptural,
and then you sometimes have art, you have projections.
So, as a set designer, part of my job
is actually providing the context of the story,
so, Are we telling this story on Mars?
Or are we actually having it in the subway?
Or in a completely empty space?
So that's adding a layer to the storytelling.
So, this is a recent production that we just did last weekend in Omaha.
It was "Cosi Fan Tutte,"
and this is definitely not your great-grandmother's opera, right?
So, it was a giant party, everybody was in a nightclub,
and the idea was
that there were two couples that were there for the evening,
and then two young gentlemen basically make a wager
on whether their girlfriends are going to be faithful.
Now, Mozart wrote this in 1790.
This looks nothing like 1790.
So with the director, Andrew Egert,
what we did is we went through the text and the score
and kind of figured out what was common then
and what was common now
to kind of make it more accessible to the audience,
because that's also part of my job,
is to get you excited and to pay attention to the story
and to really be engaged into the music as well.
Sorry.
So, one of the scenes was, you know, the boys dancing on top of a bar.
Again, not what you would expect when you go to the opera,
not the previous image that I showed you of the lady.
And so, that was one of the devices that we use as set design,
is to actually update it to its contemporary.
Now, another production that I've also done in Omaha
was "Bluebeard's Castle."
Now this one, the idea is -
I don't know how much you know the story,
but basically the idea is that this lady is newly married,
and with her husband, she kind of explores the castle that they just moved into.
And now we didn't want to portray exactly what each of these rooms were,
we wanted to create emotions.
So, one way for us to do that was actually integrating video,
that was designed by Katy Tucker,
into the set designs, so that's another device.
So it's kind of like triggering ideas into your head
as you're watching the production.
Another way, as a set designer,
that you can create a direct connection with your audience as well
is actually in contrast.
So for instance, this is "Alcina" by Hendel,
and that was with a director called Nathan Troup.
And so the idea was for this production
that we were going to use the period silhouettes,
which actually looks pretty cool,
but instead of worrying about period gestures,
because this is baroque music,
what we wanted to do was to create a really stale, cold environment
that felt very modern.
So we also integrated lighting,
so every time there was magic tricks happening, the lights would flash
and, kind of like, trigger magic
and also supernatural events.
But because we didn't want it to be as literal,
because it's supposed to happen on this deserted island.
We didn't want it to be - It's kind of a little bit like Tempus.
We didn't want it to be a real representation of an island.
We created this white box,
and for ice, instead what you can see is this crumpled paper.
And another way to reach out to your audience
is literally to go to your audience.
So this crumpled paper was kind of piercing what we call the proscenium arch,
and then it would reach into the audience, kind of integrating that.
Another form for a set designer to tell a story is called "immersive."
So, "immersive" is when you actually get to be part of the story.
You're inside the story.
So, think of it a little bit like you're in a theme park, you know,
you have the whole world around you, not just the show at a distance.
So, this was "Clemency," by James MacMillan,
and that was in Boston Lyric Opera.
This one, the audience was separated into four groups,
and so, it's the story of Abraham and Sarah,
and they're inviting us into their home.
So, what we did is the group was separated into the living room,
the kitchen, the garden, and the kids' bedroom.
And so everybody was at different corners of the room,
everybody got to see the show and experience the show,
but what was incredible
is everybody got to have a different point of view of the show
and kind of creating, again,
that conversation when you're talking with the audience.
For instance, you're all staring at me from what we call "one angle,"
but at the same,
you're having a different perception of the show seated here versus there -
different sides.
So, that's another way also to create interest into the piece.
And then, the last one -
this is the trickiest for a designer, and I love it,
probably because it's the hardest.
It's site-specific, immersive opera.
So, what that means is forget going to a theatre.
You're actually going to a specific location to experience this.
So, in this case,
imagine it's like an old armory type of building.
And so, we were doing "In the Penal Colony," by Philip Glass.
And the idea was that you were,
as an audience member, about to see an execution.
So, very happy story.
As you were entering this space,
what we wanted to create was, first of all, you know,
all the atmosphere that you have to immediately draw your audience in, right?
So, the ceiling was really, incredibly tall,
and because it was copper,
it would naturally crackle when it would heat up,
so it was already creating this very creepy, haunted feeling.
And as you were entering,
we would hand you a cushion that you would take with you.
Now, as I said,
the set designer is not only for the design, but also the acoustics.
So, as you were seated comfortably in your seemingly painted decrepit chair,
you were also comfortable,
and you were helping us with the acoustics.
So that was one of the things that we got to play with.
And then when you do site-specific,
what I love to do is really embrace the space,
which is harder to do,
but you get to see where the architecture is,
you kind of, you know,
if I were to come here, I would highlight the walls there.
You really want everybody to get a sense of where we are in terms of location.
And for them, to be seated facing this stage,
that was basically five times the size of this stage,
waiting for an execution,
I mean, you can only imagine.
Once the orchestra started,
people were already hooked before it even started.
So, these are all little tricks that I've learned over time, in design.
I love opera, obviously, and I invite you all to go see opera.
Now, you may have gone five years ago but haven't been last year
because, perhaps, your experience was a little weird,
or you didn't know what you were getting yourself into.
But I think it's very much just like everything else in life, right?
When you go see a movie, you may realize that you don't like romantic comedies
but you like horror films.
Well, it's the same thing in opera.
You may like immersive, site-specific, or you may like really proscenium,
like you don't want anybody to come near you or touch you.
So, you have a great company in town as well, Opera Omaha,
and I really invite you to go and explore and pursue that as well,
and think about design and how it relates to the storytelling.
Thank you.
(Applause)