Christian Jost's ‘Dichterliebe’ is not an opera in the conventional sense, it doesn't tell a causal story, everything temporal is cancelled out. Does that present special challenges when designing the costumes and stage?
Carla: Florentine has developed a kind of temporal narrative with us as a team, but it is not necessarily so realistic that it necessarily adheres to all the ‘rules’ of temporality. It's great that we were able to develop our narrative freely and that we deliberately left room for magic, poetry and absurdity. The costumes clearly show this level of causality of the story and the cancellation of temporality. I see the play as a process in which different constellations of people come together and become ever closer, ever more vulnerable and thin-skinned, and therefore begin to shed their layers of clothing in the costume design. The style of clothing makes it clear who represents which type of person. There will come a time when the grey initial image of a more or less anonymous community of fate slowly peels away and becomes increasingly colourful, but also increasingly fragile, transparent and finer in terms of fabric materiality, parallel to what is happening in the music and on stage. The colour gradients and dyes on the fabrics immerse everything in a poetic ‘poet's love’ tone. This makes it clear that it is the fate of these ‘Dichterliebe’ types to be together in this theatre space and to endure this evening together on stage. It wasn't a challenge for me that ‘Dichterliebe’ doesn't have a narrative in the conventional sense, on the contrary: I found it very inspiring to simply be able to react freely conceptually to the music and the overall theme with my costume work and to see how this works in the realisation.
Do you have a ‘favourite moment’ in the work? If so, what is it?
Yvonne: Personally, I can talk less about ‘the one’ moment and more about the fact that, for me, a lot comes together in this production that makes sense and is coherent on all levels. This means that all levels involved contribute their part to the concept without taking the moment away from the other areas. In the case of my stage design, it covers the aspect of framing the concept, but would not be a complete work of art on its own. My stage design needs the music, the costumes and the singers just as much as they need the space in which the plot, the characters and the melodies can unfold. In our ‘Dichterliebe’ we have created a harmonious balance between all those involved: There is the magnificent music in the new composition by Christian Jost, which has shed all the sweetness of a romantic composition and provides a stirring atmospheric picture of the inner lives of the individual characters on stage. There are Carla's costumes, which support the development of the characters. There is also the space, of course, which imposes rules on those who dwell in it, only to break and deconstruct them later on, and there are the characters themselves, who reveal their motivations, fears and desires to the audience over time. All these levels are woven into a dense tapestry by Florentine's production, which as a whole gives form and expression to the content and theme of ‘Dichterliebe’.
(First published in the Uni-Nachrichten/Salzburger Nachrichten on 14 December 2024)
