Theatre Design & Technology - Dec 1966 - 27

In Act I, Scene 1, a man-high pyramid folded down its
four sides like a budding flower to reveal a red-cloaked
Antonyninside Egypt, one supposes. Specially built by
American Stage Equipment in conjunction with the Met's
electric shop, the pyramid was on a separate wagon with
turntable. It opened by means of a chain-driven motor
that activated a reduction gear and arms that both lowered
the four sides to below base line and closed them up to
pyramid shape again. At the end of the scene, the pyramid was drawn up the raked stage of Act I onto a carryoff dolly.
In I, 3, the continuous texture of the scene changing was
noticeably consistent with the musical realization. In this
scene side wagons brought on plinths bearing toga-ed
Romans and batten-like columns of aluminum tubing. Bathed by Rudolph Kuntner's amber light, except for downstage dancing girls dressed in white and blue, the scene
was a smoothly changed, breath-catching, gilded engraving of the Roman Forum.
Act II's style shifted to somewhat less extravagance.
Scenes were distinguished by the changing positions of a
hugh sphinx (with a too-realistic face), operated by men
pushing it from the inside, and guided by a pivot point
(since the main stage turntable was not functioning). In
terms of design, the dance of the slinking, tank-like
sphinx around the stage for two complete revolutions
through seven scenes became ludicrous. The return of the
fleet at Actium was portrayed with travelling, model-like
boats that made one think of a target-practice shooting
gallery.
Only in III did the production settle down to some unity
of place. Zeffirelli first set the monument, that is, Cleopatra's tomb, on the wagon at the very rear of the stage.
When the curtain opened, the audience saw the Queen of
Egypt on her throne in the dark distance some fifty feet
or more upstage at the top of a flight of stairs eight to
ten feet high. Then, with spots following only Cleopatra's
head, the throne and steps which stretched all across the
stage were tracked forward from a seemingly incredible
distance down to the curtain line where it became a
gilded pyramid interior. There was some affinity in the
image with those few days of the year when the sun
streaks deep into the recesses of the monument at Abu
Simbel.

Antony and Cleopatra, designed and directed by Franco Zeftirelli.
Above: the Tomb Scene; below: Cleopatra's Barge. Photos: Louis
Melancon

The effects were attempts to achieve some of the
flow and freedom of movies and television. They were
sumptious; they were also sometimes inescapably vulgar and pretentious. Yet, they colorfully sustained the
interest of an audience who were not all, one must
suppose, knowledgeable ,aficionados of modern opera.
They may have swamped the music, but they were
expertly done in terms of technology.

At the end of this scene, with the jeweled black robe
of the Queen trailing down the full length of steps,
and with her winged guard and the orange torches of
the Romans in the gloomy gilded tomb, the spectacle
was certainly one of the grandest finales in opera.

Nine Evenings: Theatre and Engineering was a series
of experiments in expanding the technology of the theatre,
devised by a group of painters, choreographers and musicians (including Robert Rauschenberg and John Cage\, in
collaboration with a group of engineers (all only incidentFor stagecraft, however, the culmination was in the scene ally associated with Bell Laboratories\. The group was coon the Roman Galley, to which Zeffirelli transposed Eno- ordinated by Billy Kluver, who first gained fame in 1960
barbus' speech "The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd as the engineer of kinetic-sculptor Jean Tinguely's selfthrone
." Beyond the onstage galley, as Enobarbus
destroying machine.
sang his descriptive aria, Cleopatra's ship became faintly
visible through a scrim in the dim upstage distance--as if Ten pieces were performed twice each on nine difin a vision; dreamily it travelled downstage, the rear ferent evenings. Some of them were seemingly not
wagon moving 1 5 to 20 feet, with the barge itself travel- based on really new technology, but were large-scale
ling an additional 30 feet on top of the wagon. It was as happeningsnhappenings in repertory, if that is not a
if it were coming across the Hudson from the Palisades. contradiction in terms. And in the change of scale and
"The oars were silver" and what looked like fifty of them the numbers of audience lay much of their weakness.

were operated manually by a single pipe moved up and
down. They dripped water of silver sequins.
Furthermore, in accordance with the laws of perspective,
the barge got larger as it approached downstage: masking
in front of the ship was tracked off to the sides gradually
to reveal more of it. and Cleopatra's "pavilion" was
raised on a winch. "It beggar'd all description."

DECEMBER 1966

(Smith's review In detail of the Nine Evenings will be concluded In
the next issue. Editor)

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