11 / 66
November 14 - December 13, 2015
|
17
E
very time the curtain rises at Lyric, it’s
like a giant present is being unwrapped
before our eyes. The revealed scenery surprises
and delights, or inspires an awestruck gasp
and sometimes, spontaneous applause. As
the performance progresses and the scenery
changes, the revelations continue to unfurl.
That’s certainly what directors and set
designers hope for when they start imagining
opera productions at least a year or two before
the audience sees them. How do they get from
that initial brainstorming to the big reveal?
It takes a veritable global village to make it
happen, and each production has its own
distinctive journey.
After Lyric’s general director Anthony
Freud invites a director to create a new
production for a future season, the director
chooses a designer and they meet to discuss
their concept, talking through every scene
change. The designer contacts Lyric’s technical
director Michael Smallwood to ask about stage
dimensions and the technical capabilities of
Lyric’s theater, what stock scenic elements
are available, whether shows are performed in
repertory, how much technical rehearsal time
is allotted, and how much time is available
onstage during final rehearsals to fine-tune the
scenery.
When a set model is completed, the
creative team schedules a presentation, which
often includes costume designs as well. (Ideally
this happens at least a year before the summer
tech rehearsals that precede the season.)
Members of Lyric’s stage management,
technical, artistic, production, marketing,
development, wardrobe, wig and makeup, and
props staffs join Freud, deputy general director
Drew Landmesser (Lyric’s former technical
director), board president David Ormesher,
and sometimes production sponsors, in a
backstage rehearsal room for the big reveal.
The creative team presents the production
design scene by scene, answering detailed
logistical questions then and in subsequent
meetings: how does this piece of scenery get on
and off the stage (for example, the enormous
pier in
Carousel
last season)? Does it happen
during a pause or a musical interlude? Is it
a vista
(in view of the audience)? Are there
costumed stagehands to move scenery (as in
The Passenger
and
The Barber of Seville
)? Is the
scenery dimensional or flat, hard or soft? Does
it fly vertically or move laterally offstage? Are
there traps in the floor? Who or what comes
through them (e.g. the entire massive banquet
table and Don Giovanni with it)? Is there fire
(cleverly simulated with lighting in
Il trovatore
,
flammable gel in
Otello
’s bonfire) or water (
The
Marriage of Figaro
’s playful finale) or smoke or
fog (the first scene change in
Cinderella
)? What
unusual props are needed (fake mollusks for
Carousel
’s clambake, mountains of sweets in
Hansel and Gretel
, including edible elements
for the performers to gobble onstage)?
Before leaving (in under 36 hours), the
set designer shares a list of preferred scenic
shops. The set model stays at Lyric, where
detailed photos are taken before it’s eventually
sent to the scenery builder. Smallwood looks
for “best price, best product” when he sends
bid packets out to a few scenic shops, detailing
every last bit of scenery: decks, wagons, wall
units, drops (there were lots in
Rusalka
),
special electrics (e.g. carousel lights), ground
cloths, a painted cyclorama backdrop. The
The doctor’s bizarre medical contraptions
for Lyric’s new
Wozzeck
were built by
a prop shop based on these models.
The Big Reveal:
How scenery and props set the scene at Lyric
by Magda Krance