In yesterday's post we focused on advice for students looking for a career in the fashion industry. Sadly, young people who are into fashion are mainly encouraged to become catwalk designers, while quite a few of them could be redirected to the performing arts and become theatre, opera and ballet costume designers. Not convinced? Well, tomorrow the season at Milan's La Scala kicks off with Umberto Giordano's masterpiece "Andrea Chénier" and this could be an intriguing inspiration for young students.
The opera debuted at La Scala in 1896, but hasn't been staged since 1985 when it was conducted by Riccardo Chailly. Tomorrow the Musical Director is returning to take the lead, joining Mario Martone, specialised in directing historical features. Margherita Palli designed the elaborate sets and Ursula Patzak worked on the costumes.
"Andrea Chénier" opens in the castle of the Counts of Coigny, on the eve of the French revolution. The nobility is still leading a grand lifestyle and the counts are preparing a ball. Young servant Carlo Gérard hates the nobles but he is in love with the Countess' daughter, Maddalena, who arrives with some of the guests. Among them there is also a young poet, Andrea Chénier. Rebuked for having introduced a group of beggars into the building, Gérard strips off his livery and leaves the castle.
The scene moves to Paris in the second act of the opera: Chénier is suspected by the revolutionary government and kept under surveillance by an incroyable under the command of Gérard, who has meanwhile become one of the revolutionary leaders. Chénier meets again Maddalena whose mother was murdered by the revolutionaries and who is currently living in hiding.
The two fall in love, but Gérard discovers them and challenges the poet to a duel during which Chénier inflicts a serious wound on him. Gérard generously allows his rival to escape taking his beloved with him before the revolutionaries can find him.
In the third act, Gérard has recovered and is informed that Chénier has been arrested. He signs the bill of indictment, but promises Maddalena he will help the young man when she begs him to save the poet and offers herself to him. Gérard retracts the charges and passionately defends Chénier in court, but this is not enough to save the poet from being sentenced to death.
Maddalena visits Chénier in the prison of St Lazare, bribes the jailer into letting her take the place of another prisoner - a mother who has already been sentenced to death - and the poet and Maddalena prepare to meet their destinies with dignity.
This is a classical interpretation of the opera, so Ursula Patzak borrowed the ideas for the costumes directly from history. There are a lot of crowd scenes in "Andrea Chénier", which means there are also a lot of costumes (and hats, check out the pink hemmed grey tricorn hat in the following video) that will undoubtedly inspire designers and that will be a hit with fans of John Galliano's "Les Incroyables" graduate collection.
The teaser for the opera shows different people at work behind the scenes: from set and costume designers to dressmakers, hairstylists, singers and musicians.
So the short teaser offers plenty of inspirations for young people who are in two minds about choosing inspiring careers.
The opening of the season at La Scala is usually a very important event, and in the past it was a sort of catwalk show for wealthy people who would show off their outfits and attires (and who would also get attacked for wearing furs...).
The spirit of the French revolution is blowing over Milan at the moment with readings and talks dedicated to opera and with window shops celebrating La Scala.
The most famous ones are the Rinascente windows (mind you, they look less intriguing than last year's): this time they were created by Margherita Palli, the set designer for "Andrea Chénier", who decided to celebrate through the windows the best and most important operas ever staged at La Scala over 100 years.
Palli, reworked the interior design of the theatre, the playbills and some of the stage features and objects of the most famous operas in a surreal perspective and paid homage to "Andrea Chénier", "Nerone", "I Vespri Siciliani" (the opera that launched Maria Callas' career), and to three directors and conductors - Giorgio Strehler and Claudio Abbado ("Macbeth"-themed window); Luca Ronconi and Riccardo Muti ("Guglielmo Tell" window) and Patrice Chéreau and Daniel Barenboim ("Tristan und Isolde" display).
The opera-inspired windows will be on display until the first week of January.
Comments