Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 1998 - 31

and contains three 10 Kw fresnels. The fourth bridge contains fifteen
8x 13 ERS units in addition to a set of borderlights. Line set 93 contains seven laniro cyc fixtures (now called Strand "Iris" cyc lights)
for washing the upstage cyc and drops.

Supplemental Instruments
Tipton supplemented the Mel's rep plot with approximately seventy
fixtures in several areas for Tbe Rake's Progress. First, in the
overheads, additional ERS's were added to the first bridge, an additional electric was added on Iineset 35 containing a series of S4 PAR
and ERS fixtures, and finally several narrow spot S4 PARs were added
to bridges 2 and 3 for various specials. Other modifications in the
rep plot include: incorporation of a ground row and overhead lighting of the cyc from Iineset 93 with the laniro cyc fixtures; one 26-degree and one 50-degree Source Four units on each side of the apron;
the HMI fresnels on the SR # 1 Gallery; and approximately seven
practicals. The front of house lighting was also supplemented
through the use of three of the four house follow spots and a single
follow spot from the first lighting bridge (although the bridge unit
only had a single pickup during the production). The follow spots
were actually used quite subtly throughout the production.

Colors
The color systems that Tipton chose for Tbe Rake's Progress depend
heavily on a pallet of lightly tinted colors. Her front-of-house color
choices consist primarily of L161 and L20 I blues and circuits of
clear or no color. Many of the fixtures in the front of house (specifically the curtain well and front diagonal positions) are combined

with Light Hamburg Frost (R-119). From the overhead positions
many of the color choices are once again in the cool color range.
The side and backlighting color choices are mostly either no color or
fall within a range of cool color-correction filters. The use of the
light blue (L20 I) and other cool colored filters combined with the
use of HMI light sources in various units to create a crisp natural
daylight quality. Contrasting warm color is also utilized in scenes
such as the evening scene of RakewelJ's exterior (Act 11-2) and the
asylum (Act 111-3) which is tinted with yellowish green. Deeply saturated color was used in some scenes such as the night graveyard
scene (Act 11l-2).

Setting Cues
The actual focus for Tbe Rake's Progress was originally determined
and documented during a week of trial setups in August (prior to a
ovember opening). At that point, the opera had not been staged and
Tipton was required to set the production's focus only knowing
where the scenic elements were positioned. Typical of Met schedules,
the focus was set and documented by the end of the work call on
Monday of that tech week, and Tipton, who prefers not to write cues
in a blind mode and set her levels for the entire production during
work calls that were scheduled through the remainder of the week.
In the rehearsals with the performers that occur just prior to an
opera's premiere, there is no period scheduled for cue writing. As a
result, Tipton was limited to making cue adjustments during the time
that rehearsals were actually in progress.
Good documentation and record keeping of the focus and circuiting information for an opera are critical in maintaining the orga-

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 1998