Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2001 - 35

Figure 6. Photo of setting from Carmen.
(National Theatre Archives, Prague)

Figure 7. Photo of the rape of Carmen.
(National Theatre Archives, Prague)

The first possibility was exemplified in the State Opera's production
of Gounod's Faust and Marguerite, directed by Martin Otava with settings by Ján Zavarsky and costumes by Jan Skalicky´. The production was
undistinguished even though it was capable of some arresting visual moments (Figure 5). However, in a revisionist stroke at the end, instead of
Faust descending into Hell as Gounod (and Goethe) intended; he was
transformed back into his younger self and the opera ended. The ending
was quite controversial and seemed to pessimistically indicate that Evil
was again triumphant.
The second possibility, the triumph of form over content, is seen in
many productions in Prague and was certainly the guiding principle of
the ballet production of Carmen or the Tragedy of Don José at the National Theatre. This new adaptation of the Prosper Méerimée novel was
assembled by Alexander Scheider-Rossmy who also designed the setting
and directed and choreographed the production. Joséf Jelinek designed
the costumes.
The stage was open with an exposed grid before the performance
began. Panels with translucent material in a random arrangement were
hanging from the grid. An additional six sets of panels on the floor had
video monitors on the bottom of them which were showing the logo of
this production. Onstage was a dwarf reading a newspaper whose
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headline read "HITLER INVADES BOHEMIA." He left as the production
began and the six panels with video monitors slid off to form wings.
The opening scene was in a prison camp and the prisoners-Don
José among them-were being watched by Nazi soldiers. The video
screens showed real-time stage action mixed in with video clips. Strong
and dramatic lighting created multiple patterns on the floor.
The six wing panels were periaktoi that could revolve into a different look with no video screens and a surface that appeared to be made of
metal. The backdrop could also change to this texture and hold full-stage
projected images (Figure 6).
The music was a collage of Bizet, various performances of the opera, electronic sounds, rhythm and dialogue sequences in French that
played over the dance.
Visual image piled upon visual image, and quotation piled upon
quotation. Don José began as a prisoner of war, and then joined the
Nazi's. Escamillo, Luca in this version, was conceived of as a sort of gangster character. Many of the images were striking, such as Luca's rape of
Carmen (Figure 7), the costumes of three bloody and bandaged toreadors whose entrance was set to Bizet's triumphal music, a naked hermaphrodite with a bull's head, and a bald version of Carmen; but a
through line was hard to detect. All of this seemed very significant in the
first act, but midway through the second act of this three hour performance the novelty of the visual quotations and the lack of any connective
thread began to be very obvious.
This lack of continuity was born out by the statement of the creator
of the event, Alexander Schneider-Rossmy, in his program notes: "The
story is supposed to take place nowhere and at the same time
everywhere...All of these characters and the bald pseudo-Carmen are
imaginary, whose association is difficult for me to express in words."
And, "I would like to offer the audience open art which provides scope
for his/her own interpretation, gives him/her freedom to find his/her
own answers." (Schneider-Rossmy 1999, 64-65)
Operating on the principle of collage, this production proved that if
you can make a stage image visually complex, and superficially attractive
enough, it really doesn't make any difference what it means. In fact this is
probably its strength. One of the principles to be avoided in this particular manifestation of the New Avant-Garde sensibility is any form of critical
thinking, because when that is introduced into the process the image will
break down because of a lack of internal logic.
Much the same attitude was in evidence in a production of The Marriage of Figaro at the Stavovské Theatre. Directed by Jaroslav Chundela
with sets and costumes by Carl Friederich Oberle, this production offered the audience a curiously joyless and humorless performance.
The setting consisted of two large walls attached to the proscenium
arch that could pivot in at about forty-five degrees (Figures 8 and 9). The
walls had doors and windows in them, and were used for all the scenes.
They were painted with a kind of scrubby brown color and some sorts of
rather badly drawn trees were indicated on them. The only prop for the
first three acts was a bed, stage center. For Act IV the bed remained and
long tables and chairs were brought in for a wedding feast. The area between the two walls was filled by a backdrop that was a kind of sky painting.
The costumes were a combination of period and contemporary elements,
which appears to be a signature of New Avant-Garde productions.
The production was filled with seemingly inexplicable actions and
images. For example, Cherubino escapes detection by the Count, not by
jumping out the window as the text would have it, but by running through
the center of the painted backdrop. Additionally, at the end of Mozart's Act II

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