Opera

It was a natural progression from working with dance to begin working with opera, music being a common denominator to both art forms. The big difference for me was that where with a new dance work the piece is created entirely in the rehearsal room, Opera is much more like working with a play in that it exists (normally) as a libretto and a score. Therefore, much more pre planning design-wise is generally the case and very often it is the design concept that sets the form of the production.It becomes more about creating stage pictures and less about a physically driven performance. From a lighting design point of view, collaborating with another designer as well as director becomes an important aspect.

Although I had designed and lit Parsifal for WNO and Fidelio for Opera North, it was probably designing the lighting for Les Troyens (director Tim Albery, designers Antony McDonald and Tom Cairns) that really established and consolidated working in the opera world for me.

Since then working with operas has taken me all over the place and remains a rich pasture of work which is very important to me.

Frequently within the opera world one is revisiting the repertoire, an aspect common to working on classical ballets or classic plays. Consequently the challenge is one of re-interpretation. On this score I’ve designed lighting for three different productions of Madama Butterfly, all of them fine versions. It’s worth mentioning that Antony Minghella’s production with it’s close affinity to dance (Carolyn Choi) remains a particularly special production for me.

P.M.