Responsibilities
Concept design
Scheme design
Detail design
Prop selection
Creative oversight of realisation
Collaborators
Director: Manuel Schmitt
Dramaturg: Nele Winters
Musical director: Johannes Schachtner
Realisation: The set and costume workshops at the Prinzregententheater
Context
Who gets to decide which type of research is beneficial to humanity? The production of Philip Glass’ opera ‘Galileo Galilei’ explored this question by contrasting the trial against Galileo with the court case against Robert J. Oppenheimer, the so-called ‘father of the atom bomb’.
Audience
Staged in the hall of a former nuclear research reactor situated in central Munich, the production was aimed at people from the city between 20–40 with an interest in contemporary issues, science and technology.
Challenge
To create intrigue, set and costumes had to create a timeless atmosphere between fascination and unease.
To support the performers, the set had to provide a spatial situation that allowed them to take positions of dominance as well as defencelessness.
The costume design had to communicate the reverse chronology of the narrative.
Solution
I added a spatial intervention to act as a stage within the stage. It was designed to spark off a range of associations and could be read as a visual commentary to the concrete surroundings of the reactor hall.
As events reversed back in time my costume design shifted in colour, style and materiality.
