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Publisher Harman Publishing Ltd. - 1-5 Lillie Road, London SW6 1TX, UK Editor-in-chief/Art Director Paolo Felici Graphic Design Paolo Biagini - www.studiobiagini.com Contributors Santi Centineo, Martyn Hayes, Cameron Mackintosh, Adam Pollock, David Pountney, Isabella Vesco, Sue Willmington, Francesca Zambello Special Contributors Michael Lee, Olivia Temple (The Maria Bjørnson Archive - Redcase Ltd) Really Useful Group Ltd, Cameron Mackintosh Ltd DISTRIBUTION Europe Central Books - www.centralbooks.com USA - CANADA Disticor Magazine Distribution Services - www.disticor.com Subscriptions [email protected] ©2002 The Scenographer Magazine (All rights reserved) Printed in Great Britain XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX All artistic material published is the sole property of the authors cited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher. C M a o r n l F i a

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The Maria Bjørnson Archive is delighted to be involved in this special Tribute

A personal tribute from Cameron Mackintosh

ccasionally in life a thought comes into one’s head as if by magic and the result Ois something quite extraordinary. That was how Maria came to design Phantom . Almost immediately after Andrew Lloyd Webber mentioned the idea of doing a musical of Gaston Leroux’s novel I felt that she was the only person who could bring this extravagantly theatrical story to life and make audiences believe in it. Uniquely, in my experience, Maria started to think about the world she was going to create even before Andrew had written the score and though the show is one of the most glamorous and beautiful ever staged it is also elegantly simple in its execution. We had wonderful fun working together thinking of how to make the grandiose traditions of 19th-century opera both engaging and real without sending it up. Everyone who has worked with Maria has fallen under her spell and been amazed by her devotion and attention to detail. Even the first tryout of Phantom ’s first act in Andrew’s church at Sydmonton was complete with a real chandelier despite the stage being the size of a postage stamp. She cared as much about the entire production as her own work and unlike many original creative teams of long-running shows regularly N went back to make sure that the show looked as good as it did on the opening night. I O was lucky enough to work with Maria a second time on Stephen Sondheim’s legendary S Follies where, on the fairly constricted stage of the Shaftesbury Theatre, she once again N conjured up the fabulous magic of a bygone theatrical era. R One cannot say of many people that they are irreplaceable but Maria is. There has been O no-one like her and there is unlikely to be again. Her creations will live on forever, as J will the memories of those of us who have been lucky enough to know her. B The Maria Bjørnson Archive Cameron Mackintosh A 17 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4QH I R

Maria’s designs, sketches, research materials, cuttings library, models and reference works together A

with a newly established History of Costume Archive, can be consulted by appointment. M Monday to Friday 10.30-5.00 Tel +44 (0)20 7242 2231 3 www.mariabjornson.com [email protected] N hat makes a great designer? WIn Maria Bjørnson’s case it is hard not to think that the blood of her forebears and one particular relationship loaded the dice to

O fall the way they did. This brave and fascinating woman was born mildly epileptic with a cleft palate, and a stammer. Worse, she was illegitimate (a cruel social stigma in

S The 1949), the child of a brief union between a Adam Pollock rich Norwegian, Bjorn Bjørnson, and a young Romanian, Mia Prodan. Bjørnson was the grandson of the Nobel Life of an Artist laureate, the dramatist Bjornstjerne Bjørnson,

N a friend of Ibsen, and founder of the National Theatre of Norway. Prodan came from a family of Bucharest intellectuals, her uncle being the director of the Romanian Where does it start? National Theatre. Her life was riven by the war and its aftermath. Forced to work as a The Gambler R What makes a great translator when her country was under Nazi occupation, she was posted to Denmark. From there she fled to Sweden, suspected of anti- designer? How much Nazi sympathies. Thence she tramped through the snow to Norway, listed as ‘counter- Ø is it to do with genes revolutionary’ by now Communist Romania. By 1948, she was stateless, but got to Paris and how much to do hoping to study at the Sorbonne. Bjørnson, J whose family had sheltered her in Oslo, followed her there, saying he had left his wife with upbringing? to marry Mia. She was in love with him and the inevitable happened. When she became How much is it to pregnant he abandoned her. Penniless and B suffering from TB, she somehow got to England with the baby Maria and begged help from the

do with luck, meeting one Romanian she knew there, Ion Ratiu.

Ratiu was married to Elizabeth Pilkington, of N the right person at the the famous glassmaking family. She immediately gave shelter to the refugees, O right time? arranging for Mia to go to hospital where she S N

A remained for many months. In the years that

followed Elizabeth Ratiu provided a home and R

home life for Maria on the numerous occasions Ø I

when Mia was away either because of illness or J later to earn a living abroad. But even when she was ‘at home’, she was usually not there at B night, at first because she worked as a cleaning woman at the BBC and later, when her A I

R capabilities were discovered, broadcasting to Romania on the World Service. These R

disappearances of her mother marked Maria for A

life. She would rather work through the night M than go to an empty bedroom.

A 5 M The Gambler N N O O S S N N R R Ø Ø J J B B

A A I I R R A A M M 6 7 The mother’s strength of character, her fighting to survive and fierce ruthlessness modelled the child. Despite a desperate lack of money, Mia made sure that her child was shown as much of the cultural world as possible, adding The Threepenny Opera to what she encountered with the wealthy Ratiu family. In the ‘fifties it was still possible to go to the ‘Gods’ for a few shillings. Children got into most galleries for free. And Mia soon found Maria a willing disciple. When she had a day off she would sit Maria on the table and say, “Now we can either go to the sea or visit a museum”. Maria would always chose the museum. But though she lived physically in England, the world that Mia brought her up in was what was then called ‘continental’. Their first language was French. Their lodgings overflowed with Romanian magazines. Their favourite café was one filled with Polish refugees. In a world restricted by poverty the Middle European mother reared a Middle European daughter. Maria would say that though her outside seemed cool and Norwegian, her inside burned Latin Romanian. She never saw herself as British though, after years of being stateless, she eventually did get a British passport. When Trevor Nunn asked her to design Peter Grimes she refused because the opera was ‘too English’, set in a world with which she had no affinity. Many only children invent their own fictional friend, but Maria clung to this fantasy until she was a teenager. The pencils and paper that Mia used to put by her bedside when she left her alone at night eventually led to life-size drawings, of young female ‘friends’. These were seen by artist friends of Elizabeth Ratiu’s brother who had a contemporary art gallery in London. glue which holds people together and, Thanks to suggestions from Cecil for the lost soul, provides an instant Collins, Victor Passmore and Ceri like-minded family in which everyone Richards, Maria was sent first to the is a vital cog. This is something that Byam Shaw School of Art and thence to Maria recognised and enjoyed. Even the Central School of Art, then the best when she was world famous she never college for would - be scenographers. pulled rank or became grand. There At Central her teacher was the famous could be battles, rows and tears but designer, Ralph Koltai, another these were there only for the sake of Middle European. This was her first the show. She expected people to give encounter with a real man of theatre. their last drop of blood just as she did, Among the many lessons he taught her but she always respected the givers so she mentions learning that “scene that they gave it gladly. changes are among the most satisfying One of her favourite costume makers things you can do in the theatre. They put it perfectly “She was totally un- are often what sets the mood. How you snobbish and worked in utter arrive from one scene to another makes humility”. At the Citz she was lucky to a huge impact”. This idea was to bear be working together with Sue Blane, a fruit in The Cunning Little Vixen . “The friend from Central. “We bounced ideas thing about Maria,” says Koltai, “ is off each other, which gave us the that she was not an innovator, but that confidence to make mistakes and find she could do anything”. There is a our way.” In these collaborations Sue truth in this. Nevertheless her sets for tended to work more on the sets and Donnerstag at the Royal Opera House Maria on the costumes. In time her and Macbeth at La Scala, examples of style of drawing changed. Some of the this ability, seem to stand outside her very early designs have a ‘giant’ feel preference for heightened naturalistic about them, filling the page like the design. In 1971, she went to the teenager ‘friends’. But slowly more Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. This was characterful figures emerge. Those for then a celebrated powerhouse where The Threepenny Opera are lyrically the particularly strong visual side was drawn, conjuring up a whole world, e run by Philip Prowse who enrolled rather than being simple costume r Maria after seeing her final showing of designs. The drawings for The Gambler u costume designs at Central. This was, and Hoffman characters, in 1830 t

r as she said, “a wonderful chance”. costume (Maria’s favourite period) have

e Working in a ‘rep company’ where one an air of Daumier about them. But

v show quickly follows another means later, with the invention of the learning to re-use old flats and recycle photocopier, just as success and u old costumes, discovering how to pressures began to mount she started make the right compromises and fight to collage faces onto her designs, often O

’ against the wrong ones. Above all it so well integrated that they look as if l teaches you, in a way no design school they have been drawn. She amused

t can, your dependence not only on herself casting famous performers in costume makers and scene painters the roles - Terence Stamp as Schlemil in n i (roles you may be filling yourself), but Tales of Hoffman at the Opera House, or

a also fly men, LX technicians, and even Gary Cooper in Mahagonny . But, as she s stage doormen. Maria thought such an said regretfully, her drawing slowly got s apprenticeship was the best way of “tighter and tighter”. By the time she u getting started in design “though it came to design The Phantom of the Opera o can be lonely at the beginning”. This lyrical drawing had vanished, though neediness for friends was present all her this did not affect the imaginative life, but working in the theatre is a quality of what appeared in stage. T While at the Citz she met David Pountney, the young director working at Scottish Opera, also based in Glasgow. So began a relationship green with antimacassars, and have bags around where the birds kept their knitting.” Pountney says these early shows had no grand which was to produce over 25 productions, including the famous Janá ček cycle for Welsh National Opera, though the first of these, Kàt ’a intellectual ideas driving them: “We were simply doing it as young people and anyhow Maria was not a conceptualist”. Graham Vick Kabanovà , for the Wexford Festival, was co-designed with Sue Blane. Maria, however, was the driving force behind the set. For the first agrees: “She didn’t dream on her own, but once the structure was in place she felt released and produced marvels”. Hal Prince’s brief to her time the affinity of the Middle European designer with the Middle European composer became apparent. for Phantom was simple: ‘a black conjurer’s box so that everything comes from nowhere’. After the visual cornucopia few of the audience All the Janá ček collaborations were superb and some feel that From the House of the Dead , set literally in the ruins of a huge mansion, was notice that, at the end of the show, the cast take their bows in an empty black box. The box came from Prince, but the marvels it contained the finest, but The Cunning Little Vixen was the most loved, and the most revived. This opera sparked with Maria’s warm love of humanity, were all Bjørnson. She certainly thrived creating the grand spectacle often needed for opera, but was equally at home in straight theatre. as well as her child-like sense of fun. Pountney told her that the opera was a “slice of life” and the rolling hillside Maria designed was However, although she was friends with many, she didn’t always enjoy working with actors and found intellectual discussion with them exactly that. She called it “a slab”. The transition from season to season was seamless. An animal crossed the stage dropping leaves from a difficult, perhaps feeling unequal because of her rather nasal voice due to her cleft palate. She was known to explode: “I hate actors. I never carrier bag for autumn and the white silk that had covered the stage for winter was pulled below stage by moles for the arrival of spring. want to work with them again”. The problem was that, unlike singers, actors usually have very definite ideas as to what their character In this production the humans were dressed in grey, while the animals were in colour. Maria decided she didn’t want the birds to fly because would or would not wear, something which didn’t go down well with someone to whom every last stitch of her design was sacrosanct. this had been done so often. “I thought, why not put them in armchairs in the air so that they look like humans. The armchairs would be However it was a straight play which led to the show which would make her world famous. Her magical designs for The Tempest at Stratford 1 4 MARIA BJ Ø RNSON T o u s s a i n t

l ’ O u v e r t u r e The Cunning Little Vixen on Avon showed Prospero’s island as a rocky was, naturally, the main inspiration, with its even without actors in it. “It mustn’t just anything you like’. Round the cactus trick is to bring in the human species challenge. Her designs had a St Petersburg beach dominated by a huge wrecked lake in the basement. “What I loved was the sit there like an empty box.” exploded a hideous technicolour eyeful of without losing what makes it more than grandeur about them. But, and it was a big galleon. It was this production which lodged big circular descent that was like going into The international success of Phantom made unrestrained contemporary consumerism, a specific.” This balance was something Maria ‘but’, sets which would have been fine for an in the impresario, Cameron Mackintosh’s the subconscious. I started with a straight Maria rich beyond her wildest dreams, but riot of glamorous vulgarity. always achieved, but particularly in opera were not so for a ballet by Petipa. mind. So when The Phantom of the Opera staircase. From there I got the idea of the the move from pauper to millionairess was There is a story about the cactus which gives a Mahagonny where every one of the huge cast Anthony Dowell, the director of the Royal came along he felt that “Maria was the only lantern with striations in it and from there something she found hard to deal with. She good indication of how driven this designer had a life of his or her own. The male chorus Ballet said: “I was a bit surprised when I saw person who could bring this extravagantly we got the idea of the striations as a way of never wanted to live a smart or glamorous life. could be. She was going out for a meal with her were dressed from a mountain of old Oxfam the model but decided to go with it”. This theatrical story to life”. ‘Extravagant’ (in the lighting the whole thing.” The glamorous It was glamour of a different sort that Graham friend, Ali Walker, who went to pick her up in clothes, but the girls looking for the next was a mistake. The set for the prologue was a best sense of the word) and ‘theatrical’ are sinister set for the lake had another Vick wanted for The Rise and Fall of the City her car at her house. There she found one of whisky bar had every last bra strap designed dark explosion of Borrominiesque architecture two adjectives often associated with Maria. beginning. “I had seen a picture of Venice of Mahagonny in Florence by Weill and Maria’s assistants inadequately modelling up and made for them. Allan Watkins, one of which overwhelmed the dancers. It was almost Vick agrees “She loved the sawdust and that had reflections in the water and that is Brecht. Italy had been suffering under its the cactus. After the meal Ali dropped Maria the few male costume supervisors she as if Carabosse’s curse had fallen on the greasepaint aspect of theatre and was a where I got the idea of the candles.” Maria, many leftwing local authorities from over- back at her house. “Would you like a cup of worked with, points out that Maria often christening before she arrived. There was victim of love of glamour”. Phantom , which like many designers, was inspired by other exposure to heavy-handed production of coffee?” asked Maria. So they sat in the studio took more trouble over women’s costumes nothing vertical anywhere and the strong Maria started designing before there was a artists (Munch and Escher for Kàt ’a, Ingres works by the playwright. Vick thought of a drinking coffee while Maria glared at the cactus. than over men’s. As a woman she always felt diagonals of the set fought against the dancers’ script, posed lots of problems, particularly for Camille ). Perhaps the picture she new slant that would appeal to the Maggio Eventually she said: “Its dreadful. I tell you ‘second’ and ‘up against’ male directors. In line. In this case Maria needed a strong guide because Her Majesty’s Theatre has a shallow remembered was actually the beginning of audience... Brecht plus the Bjørnson-forte what. Let’s do it ourselves”. The model cactus 1994, she experimented co-directing as well in a discipline with which she was unfamiliar. stage without enough room for the Garnier the Venice sequence in the Powell and glamour. A wall of acrid tenement blocks, was finally finished at five in the morning. as designing a Don Giovanni with Dalia The costumes however were gorgeous, staircase. But in time, thanks to an inspired Pressburger Tales of Hoffman , designed by filled with grim repetitive existences, gave Ibelhauptaite and when she died she was appropriately inspired by Berain. In technical crew, this was achieved and Heine Heckroth. Part of the allure of the way to the desert where the new city was Peter Brook talks about an ideal balance in working on three productions with another particular, the designs for the extra fairy story peopled with dummies as the cast was too Phantom sets lies in how they draw the founded , dominated by a vast cactus which the theatre. “In the theatre, if you are woman director, Francesca Zambello. guests at Aurora’s wedding tell us a lot about small for the spectacular effect Maria wanted audience into them. Maria said that a set burst into an orgy of bright green neon when universal you risk being bland, and if you Classical ballet was an entirely new departure Maria’s passionate research and the for the masquerade sequence. The Opéra should always have a dynamic of its own, Mahagonny became a place ‘where you can do are specific you risk being too narrow. The for Maria and The Sleeping Beauty is its greatest unbending intelligence she brought to The Tempest everything. During the last act, after the arrival of the proscribed characters from children’s books, there is a mazurka for eight couples often danced by nameless courtiers. Maria decided that here was a chance for other fairy story figures to come to the party. She even provided them a grandstand to sit on once they had danced. She investigated which of them would be familiar to nineteenth- century Russian aristocracy. They mainly came from Perrault: Riquet de la Hoope, Grìseldis and the Marquis de Salusses, Peau d’Ane, and so on. Few designers would have worked so hard and so thoroughly on something so peripheral, with reference to stories that few of the audience would know. The strength in her work came from a rigorous intellect, clear-sightedly analyzing a text or immersing herself in a score to get to the heart of it. As she wrote: “People think it’s liberating to be able to do anything, but it’s not. You have to find the dynamic from the text, not a fantasy idea you have. What you’re trying to do is to hone yourself down, to reduce and reduce until you discover exactly what you’re trying to resolve. Designing is about finding out what the problems are by asking the right questions. From these you move to the visuals”. One of her great qualities was mixing fantasy and reality. She was never about pure escapism. Her mental toughness gave a bravery and daring to her work, full of that fighting energy she had learnt from her mother. She sacrificed

everything to this, even refusing to take N medication for her mild epilepsy, with fatal results because she had heard that this dulls O the senses and she was afraid her work would S suffer. Like many people working in the N

theatre she was terrified of not doing well. R

As well as spectacular grandeur and grown-up Ø

sensual glamour, her work also showed love J for the charm of dreamy childhood, mirroring perhaps what she had so longed for when B young. But there is also a keen unsentimental eye for fun and the foibles of mankind. There A is often wit, sometimes irony, but her work I never lacked humanity and always enhanced R

a truth that touched so many. As she said: “I A

am absolutely certain who I am doing it for. I M am doing it for the audience”. 21 d a e D

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The Tempest From the House of the Dead n o i t c u r t s n o c

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t e s Isabella Vesco terms of the lighting effects. The prison This real eagle, tortured by the inmates in camp is conceived as partially ruined while the first act and which takes to flight only the upper level is almost always towards freedom at the end of the opera, is a separate, where only the prison guards strong symbolic and idealistic element: An eagle at the theatre patrol, which has a flat and continuous “Libertà! Bene estremo!”. surface on which to tramp while the space A realist cross-section of an incarcerated hell used chiefly for the detainees is on different composed of breached walls, of wooden From the House of the Dead levels, uneven and converging centre-stage, partitions, of grilles, of shafts and tunnels vaguely resembling a pit. Everything is characterizes the scenic box projected by the immersed in an almost constant brownish scenography so as to create a multiplicity of he production that was staged at the Teatro atmosphere of a forced labour camp, an opera grey hue (apart from the odd moment in the levels on the stage: from the lowest level TMassimo, and for the first time in Italy, bears that plays largely on the enigma of the crime second act). This fragmented space, with its rendered uneven by the presence of rocks the signature of a director long associated with and on the martyrdom inherent in shafts, stairways and side decks on various both left and right. By way of stairs or the theatre of Janá ček while the set and deportation and imprisonment; a pièce levels vividly bring to mind the etchings, ramps one passes to an intermediate level costumes are by the acclaimed scenographer, without a story-line, without leading marked by a dramatic tone, of the genius, of and from this point further up, to the Maria Bjørnson. On the opening night in characters, built on a gallery of characters, the theatricality, Giovanni Battista Piranesi: “Le highest level of the drama. Palermo, the opera was staged in its original only thing they have in common is the fact of Carceri” (Prisons), whose illustrations have The lowest acting level and those language with surtitles in Italian. living the same condition of oppression in a inspired countless film sets. intermediate levels become platforms upon Maria Bjørnson is considered to be among Siberian catorga (penal colony). This set by Maria Bjørnson has an which different characters narrate their the most inspired British stage and costume From the House of the Dead was staged after expressionist slant rather than a realistic stories, each different from the rest, thus Ms. designers also highly acclaimed in Italy. At the death of its composer, premiered in representation, but the spatial similarities Bjørnson creates an autonomous space for La Scala in Milan, in 199 7, she designed an 1930 in Brno. with Piranesi’s prisons are undeniable; in fact each one of these autobiographical tales. extraordinary Macbeth directed by Graham The director, David Pountney defines it as “a like Piranesi’s imagined prisons this scenic The highest performance level, centrally Vick; director and scenographer, in this case, collective opera”, [...] a microcosm of lives architecture gives the impression of a large positioned, distinctly echoes that of the created a clearly symbolic construction, a six- pieced together by the composer in a cinematic space, but is actually a rather cramped Spanish corrales , though with the addition metre hollow cube, that represents a palace style, frames cut and spliced in a show that [...] environment because although it succeeds in of a trap door from which the but also a prison of emotions. The famous keeps an organic unity because each cell forms creating a whole series of spaces these spaces ‘actors/detainees’ enter and exit. In fact, it cube, with its repositioning, rotations, and a part of and develops the action”. are actually very small, momentary and is on this level that we see the two above all, with its mutating colours, is a Even though the opera is considered by many rather disconnected. pantomimes that the prisoners put on in great scenic invention. to be dramaturgically atonal, with no one The first act takes place at dawn on a winter’s celebration and these are a parody of their Today we find Ms. Bjørnson, six years after character given predominance over the others, day, in a work camp close to the River Irtysch. life and their desperation. her demise, at the Teatro Massimo in all of whom are considered ‘equal’, the pièce, The prisoners labour, they fight, they wash The external sides of this ‘box within a box’ Palermo with a production that was not following a precise narrative structure, themselves then play with an injured eagle. take on the appearance of a fusion of different originally staged in 1982 at the Welsh begins with the arrival of a new prisoner, The entire act revolves around the arrival of construction materials (bricks, wood, iron) National Opera in Cardiff; the opera is Aleksandr Petrovi Gorjan čikov, and concludes the new prisoner, Gorjan čikov . The season of an ancient city, pulled together in an N directed by David Pountney, a veteran of the with his liberation. Even so, Gorjan čikov is changes and so does the time of day: we are inextricable tangle of symbols. The scenery N theatre of Janá ček. just one of the many detainees, no different now in springtime and it is midday. depicts cramped underground passages with O From the House of the Dead (Z Mrtvého domu) from the rest. Easter is celebrated and the prisoners put on ladders, trap doors, etc. O S was the last opera by the great Moravian There are four main storylines that a play. In the ‘play within a play’ the inmates The set design works on a variety of levels S N composer Leóš Janá ček, who began characterize the entire opera: two regard the stage Don Giovanni and the story of a pretty and brings to mind the constructivist scenic N R composing it in 1926, based on the draft of a violence of dictatorial power, the others miller’s wife. Key to this act is the machinery that was based on this principle R Ø “prison diary” Notes From the House of the Dead concern two murders – crimes of passion. divertissement of the stories that the prisoners so as to be able to contain more performers Ø J (1860-62) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, knowing In order to better understand the stage stage in their own production. on the stage, also allowing for an J that this would prove to be his last musical design that Maria Bjørnson created for From The last act, a nocturnal scene, takes place in interesting movement of the detainees B composition. “This is an opera of dark drama, the House of the Dead it helps to summarize the prison hospital, in an atmosphere that reeks (repeated three times) over the entire B

which is causing me much labour. I have the the settings and the moods of the three acts of oppression and claustrophobia. The final production that, rather like a procession, A impression of descending ever lower, down to that are staged without an interval. Ms. scene takes place in the prison courtyard, where keep moving from right to left, from above A I the furthest depths of the most miserable Bjørnson represented the Siberian prison hell we had witnessed Gorjan čikov ’s arrival, only towards below over the entire set. I R states of humanity. And it burdens me”, wrote by using the theatre’s stage for one set. She now he is being set free and in the name of The static condition of prison life so clearly R A Janá ček in November of 192 7. designed a set that remained unchanged freedom the eagle of the first act is also set free. referenced in Janá ček’s libretto is represented A M This is a dark, tragic opera, an allegory on from beginning to end: the variations in The prisoners celebrate his new-found liberty through a different language in Maria M ‘freedom denied’ steeped in the oppressive time, place and mood are expressed solely in with song but they are soon brought to order. Bjørnson’s stage design. 26 27 Maria Bjørnson at work on Janá ček a cycle of 5 productions produced by Welsh National Opera and Scottish Opera

David Pountney

aria and I began our work on Janá ček’s operas pitched it exactly right and the production was a huge Mwith a production of Kát ’a Kabanová for the Wexford success, aided by some very patient and sympathetic Festival in 1972, which was one of the first professional Czech singers and a wonderful conductor, Albert Rosen. engagements for either of us. Maria designed it in The outcome of this was an invitation from the Welsh collaboration with Sue Blane as she and Sue were at National Opera to do a production of Jenufa , and I was that time working as the design assistants for Philip able to use this invitation to persuade Scottish Opera to Prowse at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, which was come in on the production as a joint venture, and to just beginning its legendary era under Giles Havergal extend this to a cycle of Janá ček operas. Janá ček had by and Philip. I had joined Scottish Opera, also in this point been introduced to the Sadlers Wells Opera Glasgow, as production assistant in 1970. I had known by Norman Tucker and Charles Mackerras, and Jenufa Janá ček’s operas from listening to old and battered had been done at Covent Garden under Kubelik, but the Supraphon records from the Hornsey Library since the courage shown by Peter Hemmings at Scottish Opera mid 1960s, so it was a great stroke of luck when the and Brian McMaster at Welsh National Opera in Wexford Festival invited me to stage Kàt ’a. I had met sanctioning a Janá ček cycle for two provincial opera Maria through Ralph Koltai, her teacher at the Central companies should not be underestimated. School of Art and Design, with whom I had done a Maria and I were at this point very young and production of The Rakes Progress . Our first meeting was inexperienced, and you could definitely see that we quite a legendary occasion. Unbeknownst to me, Ralph developed through the cycle. Jenufa had a striking, had used one of his students to “ghost” the costumes somewhat expressionist design, with a sharply raked

for Rakes Progress . I had seen them in London and asked diagonal wooden slatted stage mirrored by a wooden N for one or two changes, and Ralph had then posted the slatted ceiling piece set at a contrasting angle. The mill amended designs to me in Glasgow. I had just opened wheel in Act 1 stood alone, and there were other O the package and proudly spread the designs out on the essential elements – a door, a staircase, that made up a S sitting room floor when the bell rang, and there were dynamic composition without needing specifically N

two young ladies who had arrived to see Keith Hack, naturalistic motivation. The production was very R

the production assistant at the Citizens Theatre, who physical with a lot of dynamic movement making use Ø

was sharing my flat. As it was well before noon, Keith of the slanted set, and clearly showed its influence in J was still fast asleep, so I invited the two girls in for a the work of Felsenstein and his pupils, Götz Friedrich coffee. This was Maria and Sue. Maria walked into the and Joachim Herz, at the Komische Oper in Berlin, B sitting room and let out a shriek of recognition in her whose work I had studied after leaving Cambridge. very unmistakeable voice: “My drawings!” This was a Our next project was The Makropoulos Case , and this was A suitably dramatic way to begin a very fruitful and a more adventurous design but carried off with great I sometimes stormy relationship! assurance by Maria. The three Acts were all set on a R

The Kàt ’a designs were extremely simple, evocative and triangular raked stage bounded by two high walls A

poetic. In any case, the stage at the Wexford Festival made of angled strata of bricks of varying shapes and M Theatre was tiny and the budget likewise. Maria and Sue sizes – a kind of archaeological metaphor reflecting the The Makropoulos Case 29 compacted historical experience of the protagonist who that of the “pastry cutter” but with a curving bottom by the beginning of the opera is over 300 years old! edge that followed the contour of the landscape, and The idea was very much to exploit the notion of the included a very important gap for side lighting. There accumulated debris of a life stretched out over this were a series of branches representing trees at different extended period, and the first act in the lawyer’s office points in the seasons, and the birds sat in chairs among was a marvellously atmospheric assembly of desks and the trees, as if in their living rooms – one of many books that soared up to the top of the set with dusty, delightful and witty touches to this design. We actually funereal clerks marooned precariously among the decided to impose a sequence of the seasons onto the mountains of books and files. There was important work, which is not actually part of its original structure, scope for lighting through the gaps in the bricks, also but which of course helps with the whole cyclical theme reflecting the considerable use Janá ček makes of off- of the opera. The change between summer and autumn stage musical effects – choruses and fanfares evoking was reflected in the different colours of the scatter Emilia Marty’s origins at the court of the Emperor cushions that Maria strewed over the surface, and the Rudolf. Maria also contributed very precisely restrained whole stage was covered with a white sheet for Winter, but evocative 1920s costumes. which provided everybody’s favourite moment when the Funnily enough, the opera we had the most difficulty snow miraculously “melted” down a trap door, and with was Kàt ’a, perhaps precisely because we had done Spring arrived represented by colourful paper parasols it successfully in Wexford, and when we came to do it masquerading as flowers. The costumes fully reflected The Makropoulos Case again as part of the WNO/Scottish Opera cycle, not Maria’s sense of wit and fantasy, deftly mingling really enough time had elapsed for us to generate an references to the work’s 1920s origins with brilliant entirely fresh concept. In any case, Kàt ’a’s rhythm of shorthand ideas to evoke the different animals and alternating a claustrophobic interior with a liberated insects. The whole was a virtuoso piece of design which exterior is a notorious design problem, not to mention is still as fresh today as it was in 1976. It was revived the evocation of the river which is the work’s symbolic once again, in Tel Aviv, in the spring of 2008. core. Here Maria provided a characteristically eloquent The final instalment was From the House of the Dead for solution, a cyclorama with a sweeping slash of black which Maria created a complex standing structure, and silver. Maria would later do another production of literally a “house” with many different rooms that had Kàt ’a with Trevor Nunn at the Royal Opera House, but filled with the mud and debris of prison life, and almost I don’t think that worked any better either, getting seemed like the segment of a First World War trench stuck, rather too literally, in the mud, and I also complex. A platform was provided at the centre for the attempted with only partial success a Kàt ’a à la Munch soldiers and the guards, and a trap door in its centre with Roger Butlin in Australia. Neither of us ever turned it into a little “Goethe Bühne” for the plays in quite recaptured the innocent effectiveness of our Act 2. Maria paid enormous attention to the wigs and Wexford production again, though I did complete the make-up, doing accurate research on the strange, circle in a certain way by doing a rather better version deformed haircuts that the prisoners were compelled to

N with Ralph Koltai, the originator of my relationship have, and the tattoos that were branded on their shaved with Maria, in Venice in the 1990s. skulls. The paradox of House of the Dead is that although OThe final two productions of the cycle were it is a claustrophobic closed world, the stories of the Sundoubtedly our best work, both original as designs and convicts constantly bring the violence and cruelty of the Nbringing across complex narratives with clarity and outside world into focus, and once again this set, in a way

Rimagination. The Cunning Little Vixen we conceived as a completing the ideas that ran through Jenufa and

Ø kind of slice of nature, literally as if one cut out a block Makropoulos , had a transparent quality that allowed the

J of landscape with a pastry cutter. This slice of nature light of the outside world to shine in and through it. This must of course have as natural and curvaceous surface as was another completely successful production which is Bpossible, and Maria picked up the patchwork quality of still alive: I revived it, in Palermo, in October 2008. landscape by using a patchwork of soft and hard More or less around the time that we completed the Amaterials. Underneath this landscape, the humans were cycle, Maria and I both moved in different directions, I“imprisoned” in a rigid, rectilinear box, and their but I am sure she would agree that whatever else we Renvironment as well as their clothes was defined by an went on to achieve, this Janá ček cycle was an uniquely

Aall pervading grey, as against the vivid colours of the satisfying and creative collaboration. Sadly, we were

Mnatural world. The whole was surrounded by a just about to resume our working relationship when rectilinear cyclorama of sky blue – its shape following she very unexpectedly died. 30 Queen of Spades e r u s a e M

r o f

e r u s a e M Jenufa Die Valkyrie Hamlet Carmen The Phantom of the Opera have been asked if I would contribute Martyn Hayes Isomething to this magazine, from a technical point of view, about working with Maria Martyn Hayes was the Production Manager on the original London Bjørnson. Where to start? I first worked with production of The Phantom of the Opera . More recently he has been the her when I was the Production Manager on Executive Producer of the musical Dirty Dancing . the opera Toussaint at the English National Opera. Maria had come up with a stunningly original design and it incorporated various large, and very irregular, scaffolding towers on wheels that had to be manhandled around the stage constantly throughout the action. I arranged for some local building scaffolders to Working with Maria on staging come in, and we started constructing these towers from Maria’s scale models of them. To begin with, the scaffolders were completely the original Phantom bemused about the whole exercise ( what exactly d’you want darling? ) and what was being asked of them ( “an opera?” ) - but Maria’s complete lack of any pretence with them, and her infectious sense of humour and fun, won them round completely, and very soon they were saying “but wouldn’t it look more interesting if we set this pole at this angle?”. A couple of years later; we worked together again when I was the Production Manager on The Phantom of the Opera . I still feel incredibly privileged that I was one of the very first people, other than Maria’s assistant Jonathan Allen, to see the entire show. Maria asked me, very early on, to come to her small basement flat in West Brompton to see the model of her design. Everything was perfectly and beautifully modelled-up, and she took me through the show in order: the opening auction scene - when the chandelier N is plugged in and then flies out to its N hanging position as the opera house comes O back to life before your eyes. The journey O S from Christine’s dressing room - through the S N mirror, down the tilting ramps and into the N R boat, and then via all the lifting candles and R Ø candelabra to the Phantom’s lair. On and on Ø J the model showing went: managers’ office, J different opera scenes, the roof of the opera B house, the masquerade ball, the mausoleum, B

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The Phantom of the Opera r e

beginning to end. Going through the model n I first met Maria in 1977 in the Wardrobe work to is to the minute . The alarm is set, the n g took well over four hours – but it was four hours i Manager’s Office at English National Opera clock is ticking, and the bell will ring at the s o where you just knew that you were a very early e where I was a very junior buyer. precise minute when on the first preview, the t d witness to something that was going to be Our friendship was cemented there until our last curtain must rise and the audience must see, g incredibly special and excited to think that you e phone call a few days before she died. and smoothly working , all that you’ve just m n i could play a part in it. u I was put in charge of a huge Opera, Toussaint looked at in model form – and how it actually t

The truly staggering thing was that pretty s which was to receive its world premiere at all works hasn’t even been realised yet. What m o c

much that entire model showing was what was l E.N.O. I was inexperienced but Maria made other art-form (or much else for that matter)

presented on stage some nine months later - l sure I soon got the hang of it, we continued to do works to so precise a deadline (and from so far with hardly an alteration. It had been that well i many shows together including Phantom , out) – as to the minute...? realised and thought through. That is why I say Follies and Aspects of Love . To this end, we were fortunate and privileged to W

that I was one of the very first people to see the Maria did the most wonderful drawings which work with probably two of the best theatrical

entire show. My only real recollection of e told the story of every character and did very design engineers and, for want of a better term

anything not making it to the stage, from the u clear working drawings for all the costumiers “design realisers” in Mike Barnett and Will

model, was that there were a number of animals S and she always got the best from people but did Bowen. Between Mike and Will, they quickly that were cut (a white mechanical rotating not suffer fools, there were a few uncomfortable cracked the chandelier safety process and its horse in which the Phantom led Christine down moments but there was always humor and we mechanism, the travelling and tilting bridge to the boat, real doves on the rooftop, often laughed till we cried. platform, and worked out how we could squeeze mechanical rats for the lair – we dubbed the Maria came fabric shopping whenever she had that enormous set into the Victorian confines of show The Phantom of the Menagerie ) - albeit that time away from the set and she worked very Her Majesty’s Theatre. the monkey and the elephant stayed in! quickly often designing in the early morning then My chief recollection of actually putting the Maria also had very clear ideas as to exactly fabric shopping with me and seeing costumiers till show into the theatre was of extraordinary which contractors she wanted to work with and well into the evening. My car was Christened the long hours (particularly as we got closer to who would build what – from large pieces of Braid-Mobile on Phantom as we went to opening), and of Maria always being there – scenery and engineering to drapes, from ornate costumiers houses looking at garments and placing first person in the morning to the last one at carvings to small hand-props. She stored great the braid and ever hopeful of some refreshment! night – and being incredibly supportive, loyalty in contractors who had proved We scoured the Antique markets together and funny, and doing everything with great charm themselves to be sensitive to what she wanted Maria once persuaded me to buy a large screen as and humility. I remember being right in the and who shared her artistic vision, where she liked the braid, we cut it off in a side street thick of it, with scenery malfunctioning, re- second-best was nowhere near good enough and and I even managed to sell back the now bare writes meaning quicker scene changes, (and where you constantly strived for perfection, and screen. Maria was always determined to get the even the sprinkler system going off and who also came up with the goods on time - and work done well and in the British cottage putting all of our basement motors under who did so with a smile on their face and a sense industry of many talented people she always water – just when we thought we were getting of humour. Terry Murphy, Peter Everett, and made time for everyone. We even fitted a ahead!), and Maria always just looking back at Stephen Pyle, deserve a special mention here. prototype of a full suit of amour in a crowded me with a wry smile as though to say “this isn’t

N I remember walking away from her model café in Soho, the waitresses were not amused and real life though is it?” showing feeling blown away and somewhat we did not return there for a few months. We were both sitting in the stalls late one night, Odaunted, knowing what a huge challenge it was We have had our disagreements and once Maria particularly tired and stressed, and Maria said Sto do all that she wanted with the money and sent me home one evening from a technical rehearsal that she wanted to start a company called the Nthe time we had available – and realising that as I was having a laugh with her set assistant, of “There, There” company. She explained that you

Reverything she wanted was absolutely vital to course I was back at work in the morning. could call this company anytime, day or night,

Ø her complete way of visually interpreting the Maria’s costumes were special, she had a talent and a group of women in white coats would

J story. I’ve worked with designers who you sense for using unusual fabrics and layering them and arrive, wheeling a large wooden four-poster bed. have intentionally added a “gratuitous” scenic then adding some gorgeous piece of antique fabric The bed would have pristine white linen sheets Belement or two in order that they could later and her signature “Critzy Critzy” fine black and big fluffy pillows. The women would carry generously (and tearfully!) “offer it up” as a cut, knobby trim as an outline to the shapes of the you into the bed and onto the fluffy pillows, Awhen the set was over budget and cuts were garment. The silhouette was very important to her where they would gently stroke your brow and Irequired - but not with Maria, where everything and the S-Bend shape in the period clothes, she say “there, there...” . Rshe had designed was intrinsic and justified. would ask the director to get the artist to turn That’s where I always like to see Maria now, in

AThe most thrilling and demanding thing to round so we could see the whole outfit. that pristine white linen-sheeted bed, on those

Mme about theatre is the adrenaline rush you I know many costumiers have fond memories of big fluffy pillows, with a lady in white gently get from the fact that the deadline you have to Maria as I do, “we were all in it together”! stroking her brow saying “there, there...” . 46 Santi Centineo

t has become known as the “ Macbeth of the In consultation with the director, Maria In the third act, a huge bloodied hand of a Icube” par excellence, undoubtedly one of the designed a set that evoked perpetual night, disturbing phosphorescent colour, painted most talked about productions in recent an existential darkness that only at the finale on a curtain scrim, gradually dissolves to years at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. is rent by a rising sun created by lighting reveal the infernal witches’ Sabbath. The Primarily because the superb 1975 staging of designer Matthew Richardson. In this witches dance one of the most interesting Macbeth at the Teatro alla Scala by Claudio created atmosphere, powerful revolving contemporary choreographies seen in recent Abbado, Giorgio Strehler and Luciano machinery in the form of a blue cube years (choreographer Ron Howell), which is Damiani (revived in 1979 and in 1985) was embedded at an angle on a double downward sensual, even erotic. such a memorable production. Secondly, sloping platform, through continuous This is how Vick wants to portray the The because the directing, the sets and the repositioning evokes the complex alternation witches and the costumes designed by Maria costumes of this new production, first staged of the opera’s internal and external drama. support this interpretation: shiny blue in 199 7, by a directorial-design duo not yet Supported by a truss of heavy tonnage, its sheath dresses of a stretch fabric that clings so very famous in Italy though already very interior accessible and containing the to the sinuous form of the dancers. The Macbeth well known overseas, was so eagerly received. apparatus for the apparitions of the third act, successive rotations of the cube show in turn Conducted by Riccardo Muti, advocate of a the cube is an enigmatic, menacing, oppressive the apparitions; an automatic throne on strong musical and figurative tradition, he is object. It is covered in a plastic material of a which sits a crowned infant; a huge human joined by the British director Graham Vick, very soft electric blue, capable of intensifying embryo that floats in its amniotic fluid; then having a solid repertoire in staging the lighting, passing from dark, almost black, Banquo’s progeny, as per libretto. of the Cube Shakespeare and opera productions, formerly tones to very luminous effects. Here Vick eliminates one of the play’s Director of Productions at Scottish Opera and At the beginning of the first act, the cube three apparitions. It involved seven at Glyndebourne Opera, currently Artistic appears in all its powerfulness like a totem concentric crowns that emanate from the Director of Birmingham Opera Company. around which the witches perform their cavity of the cube; a photo of the set model The set and costumes were designed by Maria rites. A first rotation reveals that which for remains as evidence. Bjørnson – to whom this volume is dedicated the director is its other face, the direct In the fourth act, the cube appears in a very - demonstrating a design maturity that can emanation of the demonic element interesting alignment: divested of its rear it only be praised for its rare visual import. incarnated by the witches: Lady Macbeth. is almost a skeleton, within its frame slip the These lines above all bear witness to the On this side, hitherto concealed, the cube remains of a cruel dominion collapsing origins of this production: I was in fact appears like a cave, its interior a vivid red. A beneath its own weight while, rotating, it already two months into a postgraduate further complete rotation reveals the lifeless resembles the bow of a ship, from which course at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala. body of King Duncan in a golden tunic, Macduff rises like a figurehead to incite his This is not about a simple delving into the drenched in blood. oppressed people. Daybreak appears and past or an attempt to mythicize the staging In the second act the rear wall of the cube with it the purifying rites of Malcolm of this drama, revived a number of times drips blood, a prelude to the slaying of consecrate the death of the tyrant as an with the most recent being in the spring of Banquo, the couple’s second brutal murder, auspicious regaining of freedom. 2008; this is much more about what happens while in the banquet scene all those present, The staging of Macbeth at La Scala on the whole N backstage, about that extremely fascinating from the usurpers to the throne to their is symptomatic of a very important fact relative N part of the process of creating a show that, slavish courtiers, are dressed in yellow. But to the basic requirement of a good stage design, O witnessed by few, represents that special the noble rank aspired to by the assassination namely the relationship between director and O S moment: the culmination of the combined of the sovereign is unattainable: Maria stage designer (in this case also costume S N skills of an army of professionals that clothes them not in bright gold but in a dull designer). In this stage production Maria N R contribute to its all coming together and the shade of yellow, signifying an upstart’s Bjørnson knew how to rise to the challenge of R Ø show is brought to life. attempt to assume a noble title earned for the director’s requirements with great humility, Ø J For this production Vick asks Bjørnson to military prowess, a quality so very different and with calm demeanour, leaving it to others J design a monolithic element, a single from the behaviour of a social climber, to grab the limelight. For some classical music B granitic multipurpose volume that with something of a paradox in Macbeth (who lovers this is Muti’s Macbeth , for others, B

simple and minimal modifications could arrives at murder) but also evident in the impressed by the visual aspect, it was Graham A assume different values and meanings. populace. These people will be entrenched Vick’s Macbeth . And this is undoubtedly true. A I Therefore this was not about an extravagant, in a ‘ditch’ on the stage, symbolic of their Today, remembering this great stage designer I R decorative set design, much in the great own incapacity to move autonomously. How who died before her time, we might add that it R A Italian tradition, but an architectonic space much relevance there still is in Shakespeare was also Verdi’s Macbeth , for whom Maria A M that is synthetic, visually simple and and how skilfully director and designer have Bjørnson had the privilege to serve the music M conceptually complex. worked the text and narrated it! and design the scenery. 48 49 Macbeth Les contes d ’Hoffman Les contes d ’Hoffman

Les contes d ’Hoffman Der Rosenkavalier One evening I will hear a call primary elements, the airplane and the that opens a corner in the sky, Sahara Desert, since they were solidly and if heaven is made of stars, realistic and would allow everything else then I will be able to choose my star, that is fantastical to stand in contrast to and this star will be the one them. The Little Prince and the Pilot and the from which le Petit Prince is calling me. airplane in the desert would be surrounded by a portal with shutters that opened to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry allow the chorus to comment on the action and also to open onto the planets and the strange beings described by the Little Prince

y as he tells of his travels. Thus the fantasy

c Francesca Zambello world of the Prince encircled the realistic world of the Pilot. Slowly in the design and a the opera the two worlds merge. g I often think of Maria when I look at the Once we settled on the desert for our basis

e night skies and remember this quote by set, we shaped the dunes so they could be

l the author of The Little Prince . Maria had performing areas, covered in carpets to allow

s completed the designs for The Little Prince the cast to play on the sand easily. The plane ’

g at the time of her death. She inspired was based on the real plane that Saint- many people and I am lucky to have been Exupéry flew. In the first act, the Pilot has

n one of them. crashed the plane in the desert, where he is i

n There never was a dividing line between discovered by the Little Prince. As the piece t what she and I did. The Little Prince is goes more and more into the adventures of s really her last design, and she was do! Other givens were the cast: we had to re-use eight adults quickly to play a variety of the Prince the importance of earthbound o

a completely obsessed by this project. characters, as well as a children’s chorus of twenty-four. Only the Prince and the Pilot were things becomes less important. We then

l Working on this was so much fun for her always themselves. I knew Maria could create the fantastical creatures, but our challenge was decided the plane would be only a small cut- s because she loved the original work by how to create the world to hold them in. We played with ideas in the model box and knew out in the second act as the Pilot enters more

d Saint-Exupéry, and she loved the music we needed one unifying location. We discarded several ideas and finally settled on two and more the imagination of the Prince. and the libretto. She showed an amazing The costumes required a fair amount of n n ability to become like a child, to enter experimentation. All the costumes were a

r into a child’s world. There’s a wonderful based on Saint-Exupéry’s drawings, but also

sense of fantasy in her designs for The always allowed the audience to see clearly Little Prince . the actor inside of them. We devised a k ø When we started our designer and director language of pajamas for the kids and the r

j collaborative work, we began with the adults when they were not a character. This o

source material, as one usually does. The theme evolved from the opening scene of N biggest question was how to find a way to the opera, where the Pilot is telling a story O w respect the graphic artwork of Saint- – as it were, a “bedtime story” – which S

B Exupéry, while finding a theatrical language became the basis for the kids’ costumes. t N

and giving a three dimensional sense to the This meant we never had to define them s world he creates. As we examined his work more as they played stars, planets, asteroids R a we realized how his creatures are often and a kind of Greek chorus. Ø a l

floating in free space. We knew we had to Sadly, Maria never saw the show, yet I J

i ground our story, yet keep the lightness and believe her spirit thrives in it every time it simplicity of the drawings. After all, we is performed. The work has been very B

r would have opera singers becoming popular in the USA and abroad, it has been everything from baobabs to planets. televised in the USA and UK. It has A We also had several practical things we were touched the lives of thousands of children I a working with. The show had to have a short who have never been to or seen an opera R

load-in/set-up, be able to play in a small before. A large part of their delight comes A

theatre, be reasonably priced... all those usual from the world Maria created. The theater M sorts of things opera companies want you to has lost one of its brightest lights. M 59 Portrait of Maria Bjørnson by Yolanda Sonnabend 2009 (December) Theatre/Location Venetian, Las Vegas Director Elijah Moshinsky Director Antony Dowell Theatre/Location Grand Opera, Geneva Der Rosenkavalier (costumes) Theatre/Location English National Opera Theatre/Location The Royal Ballet Composer/Writer R. Strauss 2003 The Phantom Of The Opera Director John Schlesinger The Little Prince Der Rosenkavalier (costumes) Kàt ’a Kabanovà Composer/Writer Lloyd Webber Theatre/Location Royal Opera House Director Francesca Zambello Composer/Writer R. Strauss Composer/Writer Janá ček Director Harold Prince Theatre/Location Metropolitan, NY/Vilnius Director John Schlesinger Director Trevor Nunn Theatre/Location Toronto (Canadian Tour), 2008 Theatre/Location Royal Opera House Theatre/Location Royal Opera House Stockholm, Melbourne, Hamburg, Chicago Macbeth The Trojans Composer/Writer G. Verdi Composer/Writer Berlioz 1998/99 1993 1988 Director Graham Vick Director Francesca Zambello Plenty The Phantom Of The Opera Cunning Little Vixen Theatre/Location La Scala, Milan Theatre/Location Metropolitan, New York Composer/Writer David Hare Composer/Writer Lloyd Webber Composer/Writer Janá ček Director Jonathan Kent Director Harold Prince Director David Pountney Tales Of Hoffman Cunning Little Vixen Theatre/Location Almeida, London Theatre/Location Manchester (UK Tour), Theatre/Location English National Opera Composer/Writer Offenbach Composer/Writer Janá ček Holland Director John Schlesinger Director David Pountney Phedre 1987 Theatre/Location Royal Opera House Theatre/Location La Scala, Milan Composer/Writer Racine 1991/92 Queen Of Spades Director Jonathan Kent The Lulu Plays Composer/Writer Tchaikovsky From the House Of The Dead 2001/02 Theatre/Location Almeida, London Composer/Writer Wedekind Director David Pountney Composer/Writer Janá ček The Phantom Of The Opera Director Ian McDiarmid Theatre/Location English National Opera Director David Pountney Composer/Writer Lloyd Webber Britannicus Theatre/Location Almeida, London Theatre/Location Teatro Massimo, Palermo Director Harold Prince Composer/Writer Racine From the House Of The Dead Theatre/Location Madrid, Stuttgart Director Jonathan Kent Così Fan Tutte Composer/Writer Janá ček Cunning Little Vixen Theatre/Location Almeida, London Composer/Writer Mozart Director David Pountney Composer/Writer Janá ček Don Giovanni Director Trevor Nunn Theatre/Location Scottish Opera Director David Pountney Composer/Writer Mozart 1997/98 Theatre/Location Glyndebourne Theatre/Location Tel Aviv Director Francesca Zambello The Phantom Of The Opera celebrated 10 Follies Theatre/Location Royal Opera House years on Broadway on 26th January 1998 The Blue Angel Composer/Writer Sondheim Don Giovanni Composer/Writer Pam Gems Director Mike Ockrent Composer/Writer Mozart 2000/01 Macbeth Director Trevor Nunn Theatre/Location The Shaftesbury Theatre, Director Francesca Zambello Rise & Fall Of Mahagonny Composer/Writer G. Verdi Theatre/ Royal Shakespeare Co. & West End London

S Theatre/Location Royal Opera House Composer/Writer Kurt Weill Director Graham Vick Director G. Vick Anthony Page Theatre/Location La Scala, Milan Measure For Measure The Phantom Of The Opera N Kàt ’a Kabanovà Theatre/Location Genoa Composer/Writer W. Shakespeare Composer/Writer Lloyd Webber

O Composer/Writer Janá ček 1996/97 Director Ian McDiarmid Director Harold Prince

I Director Trevor Nunn Cat On A Hot Tin Roof The Phantom Of The Opera celebrated 10 years Theatre/ Royal Shakespeare Co. & Young Vic Theatre/Location Toronto Majestic Theatre, NY n

T Theatre/Location Royal Opera House Composer/Writer T. Williams in London’s West End on 9th October 1996

o Director Anthony Page The Phantom Of The Opera 1986 C Der Rosenkavalier (costumes) Theatre/Location Lyric, Shaftesbury 1995 Composer/Writer Lloyd Webber Creditors s

U Composer/Writer R. Strauss Rise & Fall Of Mahagonny Director Harold Prince Composer/Writer Strindberg N Director John Schlesinger 1999/2000 Composer/Writer Kurt Weill Theatre/Location Seattle Director Ian MacDiarmid N n D O Theatre/Location Royal Opera House Tales Of Hoffman Director Graham Vick Theatre/Location Almeida, London O

r Composer/Writer Offenbach Theatre/Location Bastille, Paris 1989/90 O S 2007 Director John Schlesinger Aspects of Love The Phantom Of The Opera S N N ø R The Little Prince Theatre/Location Royal Opera House The Phantom Of The Opera Composer/Writer Lloyd Webber Composer/Writer Lloyd Webber R R j Director Francesca Zambello Composer/Writer Lloyd Webber Director Trevor Nunn Director Harold Prince P Ø Ø Theatre/Location Metropolitan, NY/Vilnius The Cherry Orchard Director Harold Prince Theatre/Location Prince of Wales Theatre, Theatre/Location Her Majesty’s Theatre, London Composer/Writer A. Chekov Theatre/Location Basel London & Broadway B J J theatre Don Giovanni Director Trevor Nunn Carmen

B B and opera Composer/Writer Mozart Theatre/Location Royal Opera House 1994 Rise & Fall Of Mahagonny Composer/Writer Bizet

a Director Francesca Zambello Don Giovanni Composer/Writer Kurt Weill Director David Pountney A A Theatre/Location Royal Opera House The Phantom Of The Opera Composer/Writer Mozart Director Graham Vick Theatre/Location English National Opera i Composer/Writer Lloyd Webber Director Dalia Ibelhauptaite Theatre/Location Teatro Verdi Maggio I I r 2006 Director Harold Prince Theatre/Location Batignano Musica nel Musicale, Florence 1985 R R The Phantom Of The Opera celebrated 20 years Theatre/Location Antwerp, Copenhagen, Mexico Chiostro, Italy The Lonely Road a A A in London’s West End on 9th October 2006 The Marriage Of Figaro Composer/Writer Strindberg M M Composer/Writer Lloyd Webber Ernani Sleeping Beauty Composer/Writer Mozart Director Ian MacDiarmid Director Harold Prince Composer/Writer G. Verdi Composer/Writer Tchaikovsky Director Nick Hytner Theatre/Location The Old Vic, London M 60 61 Donnerstag Aus Licht Director David Pountney Director John Schlesinger Director David Pountney Composer/Writer Mozart Jungle Of The Cities Composer/Writer Stockhausen Theatre/Location Welsh National Opera & TV Theatre/Location Royal Opera House & TV Theatre/Location Welsh National Opera & TV Director David Pountney Composer/Writer B. Brecht Director Mike Bogdanov Theatre/Location Scottish Opera Director Keith Hack Theatre/Location Royal Opera House Werther 1979 Jenufa Theatre/Location Glasgow Citizens Theatre Composer/Writer Massenet Rigoletto Composer/Writer Janá ček Holst’s Double Bill Camille Director Steven Pimlott Composer/Writer G. Verdi Director David Pountney Composer/Writer Holst Puss In Boots (with Sue Blane) Composer/Writer Pam Gems Theatre/Location Opera North Director Patrick Libby Theatre/ Scottish Opera & Houston grand Opera Director David Pountney Director Giles Havergal Director Ron Daniels Theatre/Location Opera North Theatre/Location English Opera Group Theatre/Location Glasgow Citizens Theatre Theatre/Location Comedy Theatre, London The Tempest 1977 Composer/Writer W. Shakespeare Ernani Hedda Gabler Measure For Measure The Threepenny Opera 1984 Director Steven Ron Daniels Composer/Writer G. Verdi Composer/Writer Ibsen Composer/Writer W. Shakespeare Composer/Writer Breaut & Weill Turn Of The Screw Theatre/Location Main House, Royal Director Elijah Moshinsky Director Keith Hack Director Keith Hack Director Richard Stroud Composer/Writer Britten Shakespeare Company Theatre/Location Welsh National Opera Theatre/Location Duke Of York’s Theatre Theatre/Location Main House, Royal Theatre/Location Glasgow Citizens Theatre Director Nick Hytner House Of The Dead Shakespeare Company Theatre/Location Kent Touring Opera Composer/Writer Janá ček Don Giovanni Toussaint L’Ouverture Timon Of Athens Director Steven Ron Daniels Composer/Writer Mozart Composer/Writer David Ward La Rondine Composer/Writer W. Shakespeare Camille Theatre/Location Welsh National Opera Director David Pountney Director David Pountney Composer/Writer G. Puccini Director Keith Hack Composer/Writer Pam Gems Theatre/Location Scottish Opera Theatre/Location English National Opera Director David Pountney Theatre/Location Glasgow Citizens Theatre Director Ron Daniels 1981 1976 Theatre/Location English Opera Group Theatre/Location The Other Place, Royal A Midsummer’s Night Dream Kàt ’a Kabanovà Sons Of Light King Lear Shakespeare Company Composer/Writer W. Shakespeare Composer/Writer Janá ček Composer/Writer Rudman Tanhauser (costumes) Composer/Writer W. Shakespeare Director Steven Ron Daniels Director David Pountney Director Keith Hack Composer/Writer R. Wagner Director Stephen Dartnell Der Rosenkavalier (costumes) Theatre/Location Main House, Royal Theatre/Location Scottish Opera Theatre/Location Newcastle Director Michael Gelliot Theatre/Location Glasgow Citizens Theatre Composer/Writer R. Strauss Shakespeare Company Theatre/Location Sydney Opera House Director John Schlesinger The Cherry Orchard 1978 Il Trovatore 1971 Theatre/Location Royal Opera House & TV Composer/Writer A. Chekov The Way Of The World Composer/Writer G. Verdi Wozzeck (costumes) Life Of Galileo (with Sue Blane) Director Patrick Garland Composer/Writer Congreve Director Julian Hope Composer/Writer Berg Composer/Writer B. Brecht Hamlet Theatre/Location Chichester Festival Director John Barton Theatre/Location Welsh National Opera Director Michael Gelliot Director Keith Hack Composer/Writer W. Shakespeare Theatre/Location Aldwych, Royal Shakespeare Co. Theatre/Location De Nederlandse Theatre/Location Glasgow Citizens Theatre Director Ron Daniels Jenufa School For Scandal Operstichting Theatre/Location Main House, Royal Composer/Writer Janá ček The Bartered Bride (costumes) Composer/Writer Sheridan Three Sisters Shakespeare Company Director David Pountney Composer/Writer Smetena Director Phil Partridge Anthony And Cleopatra (costumes) Composer/Writer A. Checov Theatre/Location Houston Grand Opera Director David Pountney Theatre/Location Watford Palace Theatre Composer/Writer W. Shakespeare Director Giles Havergal 1983 Theatre/Location Scottish Opera Director Tony Richardson Theatre/Location Glasgow Citizens Theatre The Gambler Don Giovanni Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg Theatre/Location Bankside Globe Composer/Writer Prokofiev Composer/Writer Mozart Seraglio (costumes) Composer/R. Wagner Cinderella (with Sue Blane) Director David Pountney Director David Pountney Composer/Writer Mozart Director David Pountney 1973 Director Giles Havergal Theatre/Location English National Opera Theatre/Location Opera North Director David Pountney Theatre/Location Scottish Opera The Gambler Theatre/Location Glasgow Citizens Theatre Theatre/Location Scottish Opera Composer/Writer Prokofiev N Cunning Little Vixen Queen Of Spades 1975 Director David Pountney Tiny Alice N O Composer/Writer Janá ček Composer/Writer Tchaikovsky Vieux Carre (costumes) Queen Of Spades Theatre/Location Wexford Festival Composer/Writer Albee O Director David Pountney Director David Pountney Composer/Writer Tennessee Williams Composer/Writer Tchaikovsky Director Robert David MacDonald S Theatre/Location Welsh National Opera & TV Theatre/Location De Nederlandse Operastichting Director Keith Hack Director David Pountney 1972 Theatre/Location Glasgow Citizens Theatre S N Theatre/Location Piccadilly Theatre Theatre/Location Kassel, Germany Kàt ’a Kabanovà (with Sue Blane) N R Die Valkyrie 1980 Composer/Writer Janá ček 1969 R Ø Ø Composer/Writer R. Wagner Kàt ’a Kabanovà Hansel And Gretel The Golden Cockerel (costumes) Director David Pountney Scapino (costumes) Director David Pountney Composer/Writer Janá ček Composer/Writer Humperdink Composer/Writer Rimsky-Korsakov Theatre/Location Wexford Festival Composer/Writer C. Goldoni J J Theatre/Location English National Opera Director David Pountney Director Peter Ebert Director David Pountney Director Frank Dunlop B B Theatre/Location Sydney Opera House Theatre/Location Scottish Opera Theatre/Location Scottish Opera The Rake’s Progress Theatre/ Jeanetta Cochrane Theatre, London

1982 Composer/Writer I. Stravinsky A AJenufa Cunning Little Vixen Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg Jenufa Director David Pountney Composer/Writer Janá ček Composer/Writer Janá ček Composer/Writer Wagner Composer/Writer Janá ček Theatre/Location Scottish Opera I IDirector David Pountney Director David Pountney Director David Pountney Director David Pountney R RTheatre/Location Canadian Opera Company Theatre/Location Welsh National Opera & TV Theatre/Location Sydney Opera House Theatre/Location Welsh National Opera The Crucible A A Composer/Writer A. Miller M MKàt ’a Kabanovà Tales Of Hoffman The Makropulos Case 1974 Director Stephen Dartnell Composer/Writer Janá ček Composer/Writer Offenbach Composer/Writer Janá ček The Magic Flute (costumes) Theatre/Location Glasgow Citizens Theatre 62 63 The publishers wish to thank Photographers’ Credits Olivia & Robert Temple Redcase Ltd. / Maria Bjørnson Archive p. 4 “Maria Bjørnson” © Laurie Lewis Sir Cameron Mackintosh p. 5-6-7 The Gambler © Donald Southern Cameron Mackintosh Ltd. p. 15 Toussaint L’Ouverture © Donald Southern p. 16-17 The Cunning Little Vixen colour print © Donald Southern Lord Lloy d-Webber p. 16-17 The Cunning Little Vixen b/w prints © Welsh National Opera The Really Useful Group p. 20-21 The Tempest ©Shakespeare Birthplace Trust for their generous contribution p. 24-25 From the House of the Dead © Welsh National Opera p. 26-27 From the House of the Dead Teatro Massimo © Franco Lannino p. 31 The Makropoulos Case © English National Opera Special thanks to p. 32 Queen of Spades © English National Opera Adam Pollock p. 33 Measure for Measure © Nobby Clark Michael Lee p. 34-35 Jenufa © Welsh National Opera Maria Bjørnson Archive p. 36 Die Valkyrie colour print © Jonathan Greet / Maria Bjørnson Archive p. 36-37 Die Valkyrie b/w prints © Donald Southern p. 38-39 Hamlet ©Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Our grateful thanks to p. 41 Carmen © English National Opera p. 42 Phantom of the Opera set model © Maria Bjørnson Archive Rachel White, Julia Creed, ROH Archive; p. 43, 45, 47 Phantom of the Opera colour photos © Clive Barda / ArenaPAL Clare Colvin, Archivist , ENO; p. 49-51 Macbeth © Teatro alla Scala, Milan Sylvia Morris, Helen Hargest of p. 52-53 Les Contes D’Hoffmann © Clive Barda / ArenaPAL The Shakespeare Centre Library & Archive; p.56-57 Der Rosenkavelier © Clive Barda / ArenaPAL Darryl Jenner, Senior Press Officer , WNO p. 59 The Little Prince © Richard Feldman for their invaluable assistance in gathering p. 64 “Maria Bjørnson” © Clive Barda / ArenaPAL additional photographic material