Catalogue
English

Teatro Real, ''O corvo branco''

Madrid

The curtain opens on a large backdrop made of painted ASC - Sceno muslin.It will be the background to the Knee Plays, the scenes that Robert Wilson uses as opening and interludes between the main scenes in various plays by him.The first Knee Play is titled The Writer with two ravens ...
View all
... and in it the Writer introduces the main theme of the opera, the voyages of exploration and geographical discoveries.The action then leaps back to 1499, to the court of the rulers of Portugal ...
... where the announcement of the discovery of India and of its treasures.But the announcement mentions the grief that the dangerous journey caused to the explorers and the violence they inflicted on indigenous peoples.The gloomy interior of the royal palacet is represented with stylized a loggia, a framed backdrop ...
... which columns stand out against the light of a Rear-illuminated cyclorama made up of RTE - Temporale film.In addition to the courtiers, the Queen, Vasco da Gama, the King ...
... and a Cardinal are on stage.The rear illuminated backdrop and the backlight are among the stylistic elements preferred by Robert Wilson.He will also use them frequently in his subsequent productions ...
... in which his proverbial scenographic minimalism, actually of extraordinary visual richness, will begin to use the new lighting fixtures developed with LED technology ...
... which will allow the creation of strips and light bars with which Wilson will accentuate the stylization of his stagings even more.The Rear-illuminated backdrops, with their amazing chromatic variations and the backlight ...
... will remain a constant in any case.The sailors are those of the exploratory voyages of the first period of the modern age, while the masked characters behind them represent dancing African natives.The opera is in fact ...
Opera in five acts
Music
First night
Lisbon, Teatro Camões, 26/9/1998

Scenography,
costumes,
stage direction
Technical direction
Manuel Fontanals

Staging
Teatro Real of Madrid
Coproduction
Season
1998 / 1999

Materials used in this production

ASC - Sceno

Muslin and canvas

Flat making

Fabric: tailoring types

Rear-projection screens

Rear-projection screens

RTE - Temporale

Rear-projection films

Set pieces

Scene elements

Thank you Master ...

Some Masters

Information on data processing