SCENOGRAPHY FOR SAITO KINEN FESTIVAL / BLUEBEARDS CASTLE
Bluebeards Castle was first published serially in 1910 with a joint dedication to Kodály and Bartók and completed as the opera in 1911. Musically, it has a mysterious atmosphere and a dissonance gives a heavy feeling of darkness. In the script, Judith and Bluebeard arrive at his castle, it is all dark and there are 7 locked doors around the perimeter wall. Judith insists that all the doors be opened, to allow light to his castle but Bluebeard refuses and asking Judith to love him without any questions. One by one, Judith insists to open each door, a stream of symbolically colored light comes forth and when she finally opens the seventh doors, she becomes the fourth wives and follows the others along a beam of moonlight. The door closes behind her, and Bluebeard is left alone as all fades to total darkness.
Based on the existing story, DGT constitutes the idea of internal landscape as scenography concept. By having eight walls which creates seven openings inbetween that represents door. A perimeter wall which divides inside and outside on a stage, illusion, projection, reflection, transparency and shadow of Bluebread or Judith appears or disappear on its surfaces by lights within a darkness. The wall was composed by 4 layers of material and structurally constructed in V-angle of 2,7 x 2,7 x 6,3M height and more than 500kg weight can be moved by 10kgN/point like one hands push. A single pivoting walls can constitute a numerous number of geometric composition. In order to create a specific atmosphere, the transformations represents each sceneries as story of space within its darkness.
Project Information:
Status: Completed
Location: Matsumoto, Japan
Dates: 2011
Area: 500 m²
Commission Type: Private
Client: Saito Kinen Festival
Program: Opera scenography
Music: Béla Bartók, Budapest
Conductor: Seiji Ozawa, Tokyo
Choreography: Jo Kanamori, Niigata
Scenography: DGT, Paris
Engineering: Hirotsugu Tsuboi Engineer, Tokyo
Lighting: Masakazu Ito (Ryu, Kyoto) / Jo Kanamori
Costume design: Yuichi Nakashima (artbrut), Osaka
Duke Bluebeard: Matthias Goerne
Judith: Elena Zhidkova
Dancers: Noism 1, Noism 2
Orchestra: Saito Kinen Orchestra
