Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 1976 - 25

Fig. 23d. Les Troyens. Folio strips were hung in layers
for a brief ballet sequence that employed both frontal
and rear projection. Photo by Josef Svoboda.

Figs. 23a, 23b, and 23c. Les Troyens, showing a few of
the varied arrangements of stair units. Photos by Josef
Svoboda.

repeated, and acquires more distinctly symbolic overtones. In the opera Don Carlos (Cologne 1974), Figure 24,
it is prison bars: ten rows of prison bars that formed a
barred space, a cyclorama in depth, and a microcosm of
fear and oppression. In The Effect of Gamma Rays on
Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (Prague 1972), Figure 25), the
element was even more abstract and more powerfully
metaphoric: thousands of small spheres that literally filled
the stage except for a grittily realistic selection of household furniture and props, thus capturing both the
domestic, psychological level of the main action as well as
its cosmic overtones. The small spheres suggest many
things-cells, molecules, atomic particles, structures of
order and energy, and, fi nally, mystery. The massive
repetition of them is finally what is decisive thematically
and scenographically. The sheer boldness of the design
concept has to be respected, and it is matched by its
absolute rightness for this play. The lighting could reinforce the presence of the spheres almost overwhelmingly
or else make them virtually invisible.
Equally abstract and metaphoric was Svoboda's

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architectonic approach to Wagner's Das Rheingold
(Geneva 1975), Figure 26, the first opera of the Ring
cycle; it will be followed by Die Walkure in the winter of
1976, with Siegfried and Gotterdammerung to follow the
next year. Here the repeated object-image becomes an
ellipsoid. The stage is dominated by a parallel series of
ellipsoidal openings decreasing in size toward the rear of
the stage. The spatial form or design is impressive (and
ultimately traditional in its genesis in the wing and drop
system) but its metaphoric appropriateness must also be
noted. Very much like the spheres of Gamma Rays it
provides an image-symbol of energy, of atoms and cells, of
a cosmic womb or nucleus that forms a valid central
metaphor for the myth embodied in Wagner's Ring: an
order, system that is violated and destroyed. To reflect
this, Svoboda plans to shatter the integrity of the ellipsoidal form in the subsequent parts of the cycle.
The ellipsoidal structures are solid and three feet apart;
between them are elevatable platforms set on fulcrums
that enable them to tilt sideways as necessary. The rear of
each ellipsoidal form is framed with lights that provide a
great sense of three dimensional space and also create, in
Rheingold, a striking, abstract impression of a spectrum or
rainbow bridge called for at the end of the opera as the
gods ascend toward Valhalla. Valhalla itself is created with
the aid of a special projection. The fundamental construction is a cube lined with mirrors on four sides, and
with projection folio at the front and rear. Behind the rear
folio a projector casts a filmed projection of the fusion
point of an electrical smelting furnace, a superintense,
disturbing image of eternal dynamics and energy that is
multiplied by the mirrors. With the appearance of the
completed Valhalla, the front folio is removed and the
ever-pulsating light becomes almost blinding.
Svoboda's use of projections in this production is more
extensive than in the others that I have just been
describing. It is as if this survey had for the moment
completed a cycle, for in the Geneva Rheingold we see a
production that although primarily architectonic does
employ projections ina significant ancillary manner.
Another specific use of projections occurs in scene three,
Alberich's mine or foundry. Svoboda cast onto the whole

THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

SUMMER,1976

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