(D’Adamo found out when the thermometer he sank down the pool to monitor the temperature dissolved!) So a second load (clean!) was brought in. Photo: Johan Elbersīut that water turned out to be contaminated. Harvey Lichtenstein and Pina Bausch inspect plumbing for Arien in the Opera House basement in 1985. So they bought water from a New Jersey supplier. “It was the summer of New York City drought and we couldn’t just turn on the fire hydrant like we had planned,” said D’Adamo. To allow proper preparation of the 5,000 gallon of water needed, BAM stagehands built a “backyard swimming pool” underneath the Opera House stage, recalled Jimmy D’Adamo, now the head electrician at BAM. It had never been performed outside West Germany and the technical side was touch-and-go. One of the legendary performances in BAM history was when her “stage as a swimming pool with a giant Hippo”- Arien-came to the Next Wave in 1985. Choreographer Lin Hwai-min illustrated the Buddhist philosophy that reality and illusion co-exist with this stunning staging.īut when it comes to creating magical water effect, no one can beat the high priestess of tanztheater, Pina Bausch. As the dance proceeded, water slowly accumulated on the stage, until at the end, every step the dancers made splashed water, its ripples reflected on the giant mirrors hanging above. In Cloud Gate’s Moon Water (2003 Next Wave), the curtain rose on a lone dancer standing on stage looking at a water pattern drawn on the black Marley floor. In Eiko & Koma’s River (1997 Next Wave), there was a shallow stream of water in which the duo slithered with their trademark slow movement, while Kronos Quartet played Somei Satoh’s haunting music upstage. Photo: Richard Termine.Ĭhoreographers are even better at making water a spectacle. Harry Melling, Frank Langella, and Steven Pacey in King Lear. It took a great actor like Langella to be not upstaged by this special effect! A specially designed waterproof pit hidden under the floor was lifted right before the rain began to allow for drainage. Seven different “channels” were fitted above the stage to create the varying rain patterns. It was heated to 94º and cooled for 30 minutes. ![]() For the three minutes of “rain,” 55 gallons of water were stored backstage. The Chichester Festival Theater presentation of King Lear (2014 Winter/Spring) starring Frank Langella had a spectacular rain storm effect. Scantily-clad actors frequently swam through the water tanks in plain view of the audience-human beings being gawked at like zoo animals. ![]() In Woyzeck (2008 Next Wave) by Iceland’s Vesturport Theatre directed by Gísli Örn Gardarsson, seven interconnected plexiglass water tanks lined the apron of the Opera House stage. Other directors have also harnessed the power of water. What the audience saw was a luminescent surface where small boats glided by, a puppet fisherman hauled in his nets, and birds darted above it-an experience that The Wall Street Journal called “spell-binding.” The custom-made water tank was sunk in the orchestra pit. For The Nightingale, a fairy tale set in ancient China, Lepage adopted a Vietnamese water puppetry tradition with performers immersed in a pool of 12,000 gallons of water. That was The Nightingale and Other Short Fables (2011 Winer/Spring Season), an opera production consisting of several short Stravinsky music theater pieces. We at BAM know that Lepage speaks from experience, because this recognized theater wizard and BAM Iconic Artist ( coming back this Spring!) has put real water on our stage before. It will do what it wants, and you don’t have any control over it.” In a New York Times interview, Lepage explained why he went for the illusion of water: “Water is like doing a show with young children and animals and insects. It tells of two lovers pining for each other across the vast ocean, which in this Robert Lepage production is embodied by 28,000 LED lights. The Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, with librettist Amin Maalouf, drew from a 14th-century troubadour legend as a source. L’Amour de Loin, the first opera by a female composer presented on the Metropolitan Opera stage in over a century, will be shown at BAM Rose Cinemas this Saturday (Dec 10) as part of the Met: Live in HD series. ![]() Lothar Odinius and Olga Peretyatko in The Nightingale and Other Short Fables.
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