Can you unravel the true story from the false? Over to you!  

An enchanted lake under the moon, some fantastic creatures, unfaithfulness. Will you untangle this complex synopsis of Rusalka? You’re up!  

“At the beginning of the final act, when Rusalka is doomed to wander as a ghost after being betrayed by the prince, the witch Ježibaba appears on a mysterious suspended bed. She reveals to Rusalka the means to bring an end to her suffering: if she wants to save herself, she must kill the Prince.

The rear part of this great wall is organised so that a spiral staircase supported by a steel structure can be attached there. At the desired moment, with the help of a set technician, Ježibaba climbs the steps and positions herself in the box. The funny thing is, we have the impression that she is really lying in the bed, when in fact, she is really standing with her head propped against a pillow to simulate a lying position. When the aria is over, we help Ježibaba climb back down and we close the door to the box.

We can then release the set’s locks and, with the help of two stagehands manually operate the wheel that makes the bed and the other components rotate. This is how, during her second appearance, revealed by the light escaping from the trap from which Ježibaba reappears, the bed is now turned horizontally!”

Seven characters, all in love with one another, find themselves at the heart of incredible adventures and weird entanglements. Can you untangle this complex synopsis of La Finta Giardiniera? Spoiler alert: there will be spoilers.

Our collaboration began 15 years ago with the creation of dance films. Together, we developed a choreographic cinematic language rooted in visual storytelling, creating detailed worlds governed by specific rules. Arena is our new stage and film experience, in which we continue to explore the relationships between our live film and choreographic practices.

The story follows an imaginary community of people thrust into a high-stakes competition where there can only be one winner. The group retreats and oscillates, allegiances shift, individuals lose and gain ground. All this in a race to find a place in the spotlight.

Arena approaches technology as both a theme and a means of expression. Confronted with our own image staring back at us, the work poses the question: “Where does my identity stabilize, where do I find myself?” It draws inspiration from our unease with the implications of being everywhere at once.

For us, cinema has always been a playful means of expression, and our work consists of creating illusions, using post-production to enhance, distort, and subvert reality. Although much of the cinematographic work in Arena consists of broadcasting live what is happening on stage, some more traditional elements of cinema are also used to tell the story.

Live cinema on stage involves a significant amount of risk, and we invite the audience to witness this. And even more so to participate in it, by choosing where to focus their gaze: on the bodies or on the film. The real, or the replica.

In 2014, Pierre Audi signed a new production of Tosca. Together with set designer Christof Hetzer, he imagined a set with the shadow of a cross hovering above it, thus making the political and dramatic implications of the libretto tangible.

Alexandre Gaillard, head of the Set Design Department at the Paris Opera, reveals the genesis of the production's set, which proved to be an adventure worthy of the work.  

Alexandre Gaillard is Head of the Set Design Workshops in the Technical Department.

The set for Tosca underwent several adjustments between the initial presentation of the drawings and its final realisation at the time of its creation in 2014. When the models were submitted, the design consisted of just a single cross: in Act I it was on the stage. 

To show us its position in Act II, Christof Hetzer took hold of it, put two strings round it and there it was suspended above his set. To the problems of a cross on the stage were therefore added the difficulty of suspending it. For us, these problems required completely different technical solutions prompting us straightaway to envisage two different crosses. However, the illusion that the cross is the same before and after the interval remains intact for the audience.   

The hanging cross is the one that required most thought. First of all, we reconsidered its shape and dimensions with the scenographer. It required three motors to suspend it and it had to be mobile which provided an additional challenge.

We had to consider how to construct a metallic skeleton for the cross as well as the best way of covering it, that is to say, its exterior panels and their decoration. We had to recalculate the dimensions three times before we found the best structural solution: a framework in aluminium tubing reinforced at strategic points with steel elements.

Next, we had to find the best solution for the exterior: it was made mostly out of a composite of polystyrene, carbon fibre and resin which allowed for very rigid but also very light panels.

The Scenery Workshop had one last challenge to face: making the material as light as possible. When the first samples were shown to the scenographer, the decorative layer weighed 1.5kg per m². After a series of tests, the decorators managed to reduce the weight by half and still produce the same visual effect.

Our combined efforts resulted in an overall weight of 2.7 tons and a maximum of 960kg at the leverage points (the limit was 1 ton per motor). Rarely had a set demanded such an investment on the part of the technical and artistic workshops and the Design Department.

The first time we suspended the cross in the workshop it looked so intimidating that we hardly dared walk underneath it. It’s a marvellous piece of opera scenery in that it is full of paradoxes: it’s a highly monolithic object, the rock-like appearance of its outer covering reinforces the impression of density and contributes to the oppressive quality of its presence on stage, although in fact it was made as light as possible and is largely hollow, composed of emptiness.

I was trained as an engineer and have a diploma from the Arts & Métiers school. For me, working at the opera really is “engineering” in the fullest sense of the term. Over and above technical realism, it requires creativity, ingenuity and perseverance to go the extra mile and come up with the bright ideas that will allow you to bring the artist’s vision to life on stage.   

Interview by Milena Mc Closkey