Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 1976 - 18

Fig. 14b. Tristan and Isolde, at III. The trunk of the tree in Act 1/1 was a shadow cast on the folio cyclorama. From the
rear. Photo by Josef Svoboda.

removed. As a result of the extremely intense light
striking the different materials of cord and metal it was as
if the crown of the tree were transformed into a cloud.
What I have just described for Acts II and III is
essentially what occurred in the actual production, but
Svoboda's original plan was somewhat different. In Act II
he would have preferred to shift to abstract pointillistic
slides during the middle portion of the action when the
lovers withdraw from the "real" world, and in Act III he
originally planned to create the crown of the tree by
means of crumpled screening sprayed with plastic material
that would fill the openings in the center of the screening
and leave the edges open, thus creating still another three·
dimensional folio surface. These and a few other scenographic ideas were modified or scrapped because of
certain technical exigencies as well as differences of
opinion among the artistic staff. I mention them only to
suggest that Svoboda is no stranger to the exigencies of
compromise in theatre work.
Another interesting innovation in projection surfaces
was evident in the production of Wagner's TannhilUser
(London 1973), Figures 15A & B, a clear descendent of
Svoboda's Hamburg Tannhauser of 1969. Both productions employed a combination of mirrors and projections as a basic scenographic method, but in the more

SUMMER,1976

recent production Svoboda introduced a radically
different projection surface for the erotic Venusberg
sequence: curved, inflated folios. A huge St. Andrew's
cross dominated the stage floor, forming four pockets at
its intersections. Three of these pockets were capped by
projection folio material that had previously been shaped
over three-dimensional moulds in the form of vaguely
feminine curves. At first the folio material lay flat on the
floor and could in fact be walked on, but a slight increase
of internal air pressure (from fans) raised and supported
the folios in their predetermined, sensuous forms. The
projections derived from a total of fourteen carousel
projectors within the inflated forms and two sets of three
projectors above the inflated forms. Supplementing these
units were two sets of two projectors casting rear projections on a folio cyclorama. The images themselves, for
the Venusberg cavern sequence, were of two kinds:
spectral colors handpainted on glass (mainly on the
cyclorama) and microphotographs of agate, crystal, and
biological forms. The entire visual effect was intensified
and enriched by three mirrors suspended at an angle above
the inflated folios. The mirrors themselves were of a
curved, free-form outline and tilted out of sight before
and after the Venusberg scene. The original idea for the
ballet in this sequence indicated that the dancers were to

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