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In Opera, Clocks Take the Spotlight

NYT – “At times I get up in the middle of the begin,” he said. “They have on black overcoats
night and stop all the clocks. All of them,” an with masks and white gloves. We have a sort of
aging princess sings in Der Rosenkavalier, tick-tick-tick soundscape before any of the
Richard Strauss’s sprawling opera of love, devo- music starts.”
tion and loss. And time is fleeting, the character At the Glyndebourne summer opera festival
explains to her young lover: It “courses between in southern England, L’heure espagnole has been
you and me – silent, as in an hourglass.” a favorite. Its designers, Caroline Ginet and
Time often plays a role in operatic plots, Florence Evrard, said that creating a set was
from the evil machinations in Rigoletto timed to always about enriching the story, and it was
the midnight toll of a village clock to the so- particularly true in this case.
called “clock scene” in Boris Godunov, when the “On one hand, the set design is the accumu-
title character has visions of a young prince he lation of the clockmaker’s life, but on the other life. There is this tension between desire and
may have murdered. hand, the household items are an accumulation death. Death is very present in this piece.”
This year several productions around the of their neurosis together,” Ms. Ginet said. “His In Paolo Fantin’s design for Donizetti’s Don
world have been using clocks in their set designs wife, Concepción, is buried in household Pasquale, playing through October 13 at the
as atmosphere, or transformed as a character. objects. The two characters are very separated Paris Opera’s Palais Garnier, a clock hovers in
Perhaps the opera most connected with because of that. For her, the clock is truly the background during the first act. But as the
clocks is L’heure espagnole (Spanish Time), ticking. It’s the middle of the day and the plot—and the title character—evolves, the
Maurice Ravel’s one-act farce about a neurotic middle of her life.” timepiece changes.
clockmaker and his unfaithful wife. It was The designers said that finding clocks for the “In this Don Pasquale, there is a glass house
staged on August 22-26 at the Grimeborn set was not difficult. “We found several old where we can look inside, and in the first act
Opera Festival in East London – with a twist. Brillié clocks in an old company in the south of there is a vintage grandfather clock,” Mr. Fantin
“In this opera, two of the characters get Paris, and our director, Laurent Pelly, told us said. “He lives in this house full of vintage
hidden in grandfather clocks and are then taken about a watchmaker’s shop not far from the furniture. He’s nostalgic. He doesn’t want to
upstairs, but we didn’t have the budget to make workshop,” Ms. Ginet said. “What he liked was throw anything away. He never grows up.”
two massive grandfather clocks,” said Chris- the mess, the overflow of equipment and clocks But then the young love interest, Norina,
topher Killerby, the production’s set designer. “I of all kinds.” Ms. Evrard added: “We wanted to appears. “The home transforms into a modern
wanted to make them more human, so the have different styles, and a mix of old and new. one with designer clocks,” he said. “These two
clocks are masks on the actors, with numbers It was a bit obsessive.” worlds are fighting with each other. Norina
circling around the face.” Gathering props for the set, Ms. Ginet said, wants a completely new house, so he throws
Mr. Killerby said that he did create a clock “the funny thing is that we found clocks every- away the grandfather clock.”
shop—“I have a friend who is a horologist, so where, including in Matsumoto, Japan, which Mr. Fantin also designed a production of
I’m using lots of his equipment, so it’s reminis- has a magnificent clock museum. We even Der Rosenkavalier last year for the Théâtre Royal
cent of a real watchmaker’s shop”—but that he found a Hello Kitty clock,” she said. de la Monnaie in Brussels. In it, the princess
also wanted something atmospheric. “The opera is only one hour long, but the orders all the clocks in her home to be stopped.
“We have several singers dressed as clocks clocks are always running,” Ms. Evrard said. Mr. Fantin and the director decided that they
who strike a chime as the show is about to “It’s about death and taking the time to enjoy could go further. “She tells the servants to bring
her all of the clocks because she doesn’t want to
see the passage of time. They bring her about 15
clocks, and she removes all of the hands. It’s a
very powerful moment.”

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