Designing the stage

Don Giovanni, used Disguise (1) from start 1. Система відео ефектів Disguise
to finish, allowing the team to explore, 2. Розкадрування
develop and test looks for the stage as if it
were a moving storyboard (2).
Together with Kasper Holten, the creative 3. Творча група
team (3) on the production, including Es 4. Сценографія
Devlin (stage design) (4) and Luke Halls 5. Відео проекції
(video design), worked out a fluid,
malleable way to tell the story of Don
Giovanni’s seducing ways by turning to
video projections (5) as a key visual.
With a two-storey high, constantly 6. Який обертається
revolving (6) house featuring doors, 7. Елемент декорації
windows and staircases as a key stage 8. Візуальний ряд
element (7), Kasper and his team decided 9. Планування епізодів
early on to use this as a blank canvas, with
projections forming the main visuals (8)
throughout the production. A technically
challenging project, Disguise was chosen
for the entire process, from simulation &
show design to sequencing (9) and delivery.
By using Disguise from start to finish, the 10. Точність
entire team was able to use its 3D stage
simulator to explore, develop and test looks
for the stage as if it were a moving
storyboard. Disguise works on the outset of
video content being created on basis of a 3D
model, giving extremely high accuracy (10)
in projection, even with moving objects.
With Es Devlin’s design, the 3D object of 11. Елемент декорації
the set element (11) was carefully created, 12. UV-розгортка
after which the UV textures (12) were 13. Шаблон
‘unwrapped’ to form a 2D content template
(13). Luke Halls, famous for his video work
on the 2012 Olympics and U2, then used
these pixel-perfect templates as guidelines
to create his designs.
As the content is made for the 3D object 14. Короткофокусний
rather than on the basis of rendered out
content made from the point of view of the
projector, the creative and technical team at
the Royal Opera House were even able to
use the developing projections during
rehearsals in a smaller space with a short-
throw (14) lens.
Starting with Designer, the Disguise 15. Система керування світлом
software-only solution suitable for laptops,
Luke, Es and Kasper could work on
different looks for the stage. Once
rehearsals started, 4U v2.5’s were used to
output the video. The show operation saw
Disguise being controlled through a High
End Systems Hog 4 lighting console (15).
This helped save time as the production
moved from the rehearsal space to the main
stage.
Will Harding, Production Manager at the 16. Монтувати, встановлювати
Royal Opera House said “I was very
impressed by Disguise, it allowed us to
undertake something we would never have
attempted with a different system, and
proved to be very reliable and quick to set
up (16) on stage.”

https://www.disguise.one/en/solutions/theatre/don-
giovanni-royal-opera-house/

Set design is the anticipation of theater,

like a visual manifest of an idea, a
clean white sheet of paper where the
life of the future play begins. Such idea
can be traced in the decoration of the
exhibit “Triennial of set design named
after Danylo Lider”.

The school of Ukrainian set design

founded by outstanding master of set
design Danylo Lider (1912-2002) is
valuable above all due to the fact that
he set a unique professional direction
which enables his numerous students to
follow the principles of mastery, con-
tinue his manner, develop, transform,
interpret the foundations of the creation
of the artistic image of the play.

The exposition “Triennial 2016” is a

kind of report of well-known Ukrainian
artists about the set designs they have
created over the past three years. The
exposition of the specialized exhibits
always presents the active artists who
work mainly in the capital theaters. So,
Maria Levytska’s style can be guessed
from the intricate-academic set design
she created for operas and ballets at the
National Opera House. Andrii
Aleksandrovych-Dochevskyi is repres-
ented by the contrast sketches of set
designs of the complicated construc-
tions of the transformer bridge with nu-
merous meanings and allusions in Erik
XIV and mysterious pagoda-windows
between two worlds, civilizations, and
cultures in Idzanami. Volodymyr
Karashevskyi offers an interesting sys-
tem of versions of moving the curtains
in the play A Star, or Intoxication with
Theater, and Kateryna Korniichuk in
the play Molieriana depicted the
present opposition of the times of Mo-
liere and Bulgakov, making black and
red adversary colors, which symbolize
the tragic destiny of the writer and
playwright.
https://day.kyiv.ua/en/article/culture/how- The exposition shows all the stages of
face-plays-emerged work of set designer and costume
artist: sketches, costumes, prepared
dummies, billboards, author’s posters,
photos, various collages, graphic works
and paintings, real actors’ costumes,
masks of the characters. Knowing how
everything comes to life in the play,
one can see how important the visual
art in theater is. It is able to dominate
the process of creating the play. And it
is clear how necessary is the subtle
feeling of the material by the artist, its
harmony with the director.

1. Розкадрування Storyboard
2. Творча група Creative team
3. Сценографія Stage design
4. Відео проекція Video projection
5. Той, що обертається Revolving
6. Елемент декорації Stage element
7. Планування епізодів Sequencing
8. Точність Accuracy
9. Елемент декорації Set element
10. Шаблон Template
11. Короткофокусний Short-throw
12. Система керування світлом Lighting console
13. Монтувати, встановлювати Set up
14. Лінза Lens
15. Художній образ Artistic image
16. Ескіз Sketch
17. Завіса Curtain
18. Художник по костюмах Costume artist
19. Вокальний твір Vocal work
20. Фінальна арія Final aria
 21. Художній керівник Artistic director
22. Музичний керівник Music director
23. Встановлення реквізиту на сцені Set dressing
24. Танцювальне покриття (сцени) Dance floor
25. Реквізит, бутафорія Property (prop)
26. Зміна декорацій Scene shift
27. Макет сценічного оформлення Set model

By popular demand, Romeo and Juliet - Love and Change the World (Romeo e
Giulietta - Ama e cambia il mondo) has returned to the stage in Italy.
Making its debut in February 2018 at the Linear Ciack Theatre in Milan, Romeo
and Juliet - Love and Change the World will be bringing Shakespeare’s emotional opera
to big city destinations throughout Italy until November 2018. The production was
strongly desired by David and Clemente Zard and produced by Vivo Concerti, Romeo
and Juliet - Love and Change the World is the remake of a musical staged for the first
time in 2013, which interprets the tragic events of Romeo and Juliet. Featuring 23 scene
changes, hundreds of costumes, and lighting and video projections on both static and
dynamic surfaces.
Massimo Gasbarro, who worked on the video on behalf of BOTW, describes,“the
musical uses moving and rotating scenes. Some projections follow the movements of the
scenes and adapt accordingly.”
Such a complex operation required powerful software and media servers, capable of
handling video content in the best possible way. The production uses a disguise 2x4pro
media server, built for touring, the sturdiness of the server is ideal for life on the road
when travelling with the show. “I had already used disguise products for the L'Albero
della Vita, an Expo 2015’s project that took place in Milan,” Massimo explains,“the
combined system of disguise hardware and software offers the power, reliability and
versatility needed to carry out complex projects.”
The pre-vis team also made use of disguise Designer software, which allowed the
team to visualise, design, and sequence the project wherever they were. Massimo
describes, “the Designer software allowed the full control of the projections on the
dynamic scenography. To follow the objects the encoder managed by disguise was used
and the speed of calibrations and alignments was excellent thanks to QuickCal.”
"Romeo and Juliet - Love and Change the World is a very complex theatrical
representation, based on different projection plans and continuous scenographic
movements. In such a situation, all the functions offered by the disguise system have
been useful and have satisfied every single requirement: from the synchronism with all
the encoders scattered in the scene to the management of the videos, from the calibration
of the projectors to the synchronization of the timecode," explains Massimo.
He continues, “within the show, disguise, receives, analyses and synchronises the
data sent by the encoders of the stage engines and organises the different projection
plans.”
https://www.disguise.one/en/solutions/theatre/disguise-romeo-juliet/

1. The Royal Opera opened its doors to its first post-lockdown live audience for 4/4,
a quartet of staged vocal works, none of them originally intended for the theatre, all of
them dealing in some way with isolation.
2. The director transforms the work from a bittersweet study of a child’s growing
awareness of transience into a poignant examination of adult loneliness, in which an
unnamed woman remembers, or imagines, life with a family now absent, or which she
may indeed never have had.
3. Adele Thomas’s production of Handel’s 1710 cantata Apollo e Dafne starts out
as an erotic comedy but turns troubling as Jonathan McGovern’s Apollo becomes
obsessive in his pursuit of Alexandra Lowe’s Dafne, before divine intervention leaves
him crestfallen, self-pitying and alone.
4. There’s beautiful playing from the ROH Orchestra under Christian Curnyn in the
Handel, and Lowe makes an exquisite, self-assured Dafne opposite McGovern’s funny
yet dangerous Apollo, excellent in his grieving final aria.
 5. The first concert will be available for free, and will be hosted by the BBC’s Anita
Rani and the ROH’s director of music, Antonio Pappano; two further concerts (on 20 and
27 June) will be available to view live and on demand for £4.99; BBC Television will
subsequently broadcast highlights from all three concerts, and has also announced a
repeat broadcast of Pappano’s acclaimed 2010 series Opera Italia.
6. The production is strong on barrack-room male bonding and the wartime
victimisation of women, less successful in its delineation of a credulous society that
believes in witchcraft and prosecutes its perceived adherents; Dante Ferretti's oppressive
sets still take too long to change, impeding the progress of an opera that should maintain
a hurtling momentum from start to finish.
7. The German director David Bösch, making his Covent Garden debut, is clearly
aware of the problem, but his answer lacks conviction; Bösch sets the drama in a
generalised present day — a tank rolls on and off stage as the armies gather, soldiers take
selfies with their terrified prisoners, throats are viciously slit and Manrico heads off at the
end of Di quella pira with a baseball bat-wielding gang of thugs.
8. Peter Watson's staging, getting its third Welsh National Opera outing in eight
years, focuses on the emotions with a set that could hardly be darker or more stark - using
four massive curves of burnished wall to create any number of configurations – soldier's
camp, gypsy encampment, nunnery, castle ramparts – the effect is sculptural and
monumental.
9. Updating the work to the 1940s, Gaitanou reimagines it as a noir-ish thriller with
supernatural overtones, which, despite occasional eccentricities, carefully sustains the
opera’s ambiguous mood of tragedy, irony, passion and wit.
10. Kristian Fredrikson’s doll-like sets – from the cultivated grace of the
Edwardian wedding to the cold austerity of the mental asylum with its nurses straight out
of a nightmare – only enhance the drama, costumes are not mere accessories but often
integral to the dance itself.
11. The three-minute film will be available to watch online as part of the
BBC’s extensive Culture in Quarantine programme; the dancers involved are yet to be
announced, but they come from a range of international companies and include a few
performers Baker has worked with in the past.
12. A lot of Baker’s work has concentrated on climate change, such as the
dance film Spaghetti Junction, featuring dancers from Hong Kong Ballet and
Birmingham Royal Ballet, which was released on Earth Day as part of Culture in
Quarantine.
13. Despite the merrymaking – with neat, fleet turns from Miki Mizutani and
Maureya Lebowitz as two spry courtesans – Philip Prowse’s designs maintain the sense
of glowering doom, as the palace’s dark marbled columns give way to a murky lakeside
framed by spidery branches.
14. With its subtle, autumnal palette this is an especially beautiful and
atmospheric production, but Macfarlane’s designs delineate more than time and place.
15. First staged at Covent Garden in 1989 by Natalia Makarova, this production
of La Bayadère is visually intoxicating: the sets, by Pier Luigi Samaritani, are ravishing,
dizzying Himalayan vistas, misted valleys suffused in violet light, distant rose-lit peaks.