This was published 12 years ago
Just add water and stage is set for a picture-perfect La Traviata
By Wendy Frew
NOTHING is left to chance when you are designing a floating opera with a giant chandelier suspended above the stage, an orchestra pit below the water line, and scenery that will be transported by barge.
For Australia's most accomplished and daring set designer, Brian Thomson, that means checking annual rain and weather patterns, and full moon dates that could deliver a king tide just as Opera Australia's 25-metre stage for its production of La Traviata takes to Sydney Harbour next March.
An artist's impression of what the $11 million stage will look like when completed.
Thomson was the genius behind the original productions of Jesus Christ Superstar, Sydney Olympic and Melbourne Commonwealth Games ceremonies, and Sydney New Year's eve events, among many others. With extensive, large-scale design experience, he wasn't daunted by the thought of adding water to the creative and engineering mix.
''I just thought of it as a challenge,'' said Thomson from Adelaide where construction has begun on a stage half the size of an Olympic swimming pool, so big several semi-trailers will be needed to transport it to Sydney. It will sit on pylons driven into the harbour bed, off Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens.
A 3000-seat amphitheatre, restaurants and bars will also be built for the three-week season.
The idea of large-scale aquatic opera isn't entirely new. Austria's Bregenz Festival has used a floating stage on Lake Constance to stage spectacular productions. Next year it will feature Umberto Giordano's opera Andre Chenier. When Opera Australia's artistic director, Lyndon Terracini, approached Thomson last year with the idea of staging the Verdi opera on Sydney Harbour, Thomson ditched the company's preliminary visuals of a camellia as the primary motif.
''La Traviata is all about opulence so I suggested the chandelier,'' said Thomson, who has designed the stage floor as a giant, gilded picture frame.
''La Traviata is about when you have 'it' and what life is like when you don't have it. [The opera's female lead] Violetta was the most popular party girl and then she becomes last year's model, which is the sadness of it.''
For Thomson, the story's party scenes are ''very Sydney'', with a backdrop of the Opera House, Harbour Bridge and fireworks, and characters in the opera arriving at the stage by boat.
Some of the costumes, designed by Tess Schofield, will resemble Mardi Gras outfits. The 9-metre x 9-metre chandelier, being built in Melbourne, will be transported to Sydney by truck, then moved into place by barge.
Australians have proved themselves adept at staging massive theatrical events but ''far too often we are held back'', Thomson said.
''We showed what we can do with the Olympic Games but you need a Harry M. Miller or a Lyndon Terracini to back you,'' he said.