Rocks, Opera

on designing sets for the Haymarket Opera Company of Chicago’s upcoming performance of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphèe aux Enfers:

http://haymarketopera.org/events.html

Tarpeian Rock, Capitoline Hill, Rome
watercolor and gouache on toned paper

I’ve written elsewhere on what, in the end, one does with plein air work. It so happens that a very fertile opportunity has come my way to employ my plein air experience in another context: Baroque opera sets. I’ve designed sets for the upcoming Haymarket Opera company’s performance of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphèe aux Enfers, and for the second act’s underworld set I drew heavily on the experience of these rocky Tyrrhenian shores. Please visit the Emulatio blog for a series on the sets, and the Haymarket Opera company’s website.

Piscine Naturali, Island of Ponza, Italy

Bastia, Corsica