Alcina

Scenography





Costume- and stagedesign.

Flanders Operastudio (Gent).
The Operastudio is a post-graduate training for young opera singers and accompanists. A small group of internationally selected students works on different projects over the course of one year.

Director Vincent van den Elshout had three wishes.
A modern island to come ashore to.
An adult playground...'Alcina' as a game.
Different hights to visualise the changing relationships between the characters.

Alcina…Red, exotic and erotic. Passionate. Unpredictable.
On the other hand Bradamante, in greys and blacks. Calculated, reserved, mysterious.
Marylin Monroe in red silk for Alcina.
Trinity from 'The Matrix' for Bradamante.
We've watched World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings and Blade Runner.
Japanese warriors, Harajuku station, a moodcube hanging on a rope.
Ankie van den Meerendonk sewed all our ideas together.
Huib Burmanje put the students in front of the mirror and re-invented their hair.
We've tried and changed.

Every evening, five silhouettes are responsible for the set. With 75 cubes, they build a modern island, where Bradamante and Melisso drift ashore. The blocks are manipulated during the show. Thrones and towers, bridges and castles, paths and sees.
Differences in hight are built and ruined. The lanscape on stage changes all the time, from lonelyness to battleground and back again. The five silhouettes build and break down, stack and turn. They support the story, follow it or lead it. It's anticipation and reaction. Everey night a new game.
Alcina and her red people only walk upon red cubes. Bradamante and her bodyguard can not walk on these red cubes, they are limited to the grey ones. It's Ruggiero who has to admit what colour (or colourlessness) he's with.
The set is the result of a constant dialogue with the singers. We've made the cubes, they've tried every possible thing with them. We gave them perfectly straight cubes, they built a wall and then violently demolished it. This is why the cubes have the beautiful patine of the working process.


Music director: Hein Boterberg
Director: Vincent van den Elshout
Ensemble: Arcus Coloratus
Executing costumes: Ankie van den Meerendonk
Hairdresser: Huib Burmanje
Light: Jan Vereecken, Caroline Pauwels en Robin Baelmans
www.dqp.nu
www.meerendonkcouture.nl
www.kapperhuibburmanje.nl
www.operastudiovlaanderen.be