ITALY: OPERAMA USES LIGHT SHOWS TO INTRODUCE PEOPLE TO OPERA

Record ID: 388565

  • Title: ITALY: OPERAMA USES LIGHT SHOWS TO INTRODUCE PEOPLE TO OPERA
  • Date: 29th August 1999
  • Summary: VERONA, ITALY (AUGUST 29-30, 1999) (REUTERS TV -- ACCESS ALL) (SOUNDBITE) (English) PATRICK WATKINSON, OPERAMA's PROJECTION DESIGNER, 'My main problem is with the curve of the screen - it's not a flat screen - we usually project onto a flat vertical screen. Because it's a curve - Then the issue of where to put the projectors - because the arena is not a perfect circle you
  • Embargoed: 13th September 1999 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: VERONA, ITALY
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA4PCMNBDPH1ZSFZYCNBJ6BWKTT
  • Story Text: Opera has always suffered from a 'snooty' image - an art that sees itself as elitist - to be enjoyed by an elite.
    But a new method of staging the great operas using a stunning light-show has been developed in Italy - and is getting set to tour - in a bid to bring the art to a wider and younger audience.
    A new manner of staging grand opera is about to be unleashed on the world.
    'Operama' uses a stunning light show to enhance and support the musical experience of opera - and recently enjoyed its world debut at a wonderful setting in Verona in Northern Italy - a two thousand year old Roman arena.
    Using three special projectors a series of huge backdrops were thrown up onto the curved steps behind the 'stage' for a unique performance of Puccini's Madame Butterfly.
    Verona is famous for many things - not least as the fictional site for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet - a potential tourist attraction catered for with a Juliet 'balcony' in the heart of this lovely little town.And the Arena di Verona, the town's operatic company, has long been renowned for its innovative - and brave - efforts to stage opera in a different manner.
    It hasn't always endeared itself to the critics with this approach - but the company's argument is that opera has catered to the critics - and a select group of Italian opera critics at that - for too long and not the masses for which it was originally written for.
    Now the company has teamed up with 'Operama' a new organization created by Maestro Giuseppe Raffa to bring new technology to an old art.
    They staged Madame Butterfly at Verona this month using a series of slides to portray both a 'Japanese' enviroment - and the 'mood' of Butterfly.
    Raffa says, "We're talking here about three and a half thousands square metres of stage and there the fact that it is not completely square but round - so the visual problems are completely different of any other say - lets say Wembley arena - where we have a square stage.Here we talking about 360 degress - so you take a portion of it - 180 degrees - you're facing very strong logistical problems - that's unique here."
    But are the slides a distraction? "Absolutely not," Raffa says."Especially here with Butterfly - it's a static opera - a few people - it's not like Aida where you have lots of choral and movements - even where you can put elephants on.You have an intimate opera - and there the images have two different moments.The first part - the Japanese environment - the external enviroment - in a regular production there isn't much to show.You have to build it and that's what you get.For one full act there's nothing to change.Here you have the opportunity to get into some kind of Japanese enviroment.We have found a way to communicate to people - to let them understand what the story is - what the music is - we wanted to bring it back to the level at which we started from! It started as an entertainment - and then it became elite - so now we want to bring it back to the masses again.How? By making clear the line of communication with them - audio AND visual."
    The end result is stunning - and was well received by the Verona crowd enjoying the unique setting of their atmospheric Roman arena.
    The production hits the road this Autumn - with ambitious plans to play the vast Wembley Arena in London in November - where it may struggle to generate the same atmosphere.
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