Monteverdi's groundbreaking L'Orfeo opens next week, on Tuesday 11 July.
Ahead of the production we caught up with designer Nate Gibson - on visual inspirations, from Glastonbury to the underworld, and the balance between the between the mythic and the personal...
Where did you start with L'Orfeo?
With any opera I’m asked to design, I like to start by listening to the piece and allowing my imagination to flow, to see what inspires me. After that I do take a two-pronged research approach: on the one hand finding images that connect with my interpretation of the piece, and on the other doing historic background research. At this point I will have also begun having meetings with the director to discuss their vision for the piece and discover what visual language best supports it.
With L’Orfeo, director Olivia Fuchs and I were both interested in exploring the balance between the mythic and the personal – creating a contemporary take on this ancient myth to highlight the immediacy and relevance of the deeply human emotions within it.
What's the opera about for you?
For me it’s about the process of grief. I see Orfeo’s journey into the underworld as a journey into the darkest places within himself as he attempts first to deny and ultimately accept the profound loss he has experienced.
Anselm Kiefer's Aller Tage Abend, aller Abende Tag (The Evening of All Days, The Day of All Evenings) (2014), on the cover of Longborough's 2023 programme book.
What's most important to you in the production?
Working together with the team to create something that is bigger than what any one of us could achieve alone, and making sure that the process is as fulfilling as the end result.
What kind of role does the design play?
The set design for this production is abstract and minimal, with the intention of leaving space for imagination and interpretation. With the costume design, the references are all contemporary to make a clear connection to the present day, but are more emblematic than literal. Overall the design serves to express Orfeo’s journey within his own psyche, and every visual element is connected with the emotional experience he is going through.
How do you see the relationship between director and designer?
Ideally it’s a collaborative partnership where the two of you have the same core goals in building the production, but can each offer different perspectives based on your separate focuses. In the best collaborations, there’s a lot of mutual trust – the director trusts the designer to offer visual-spacial solutions that support the narrative, and the designer trusts the director’s vision for the piece and the narrative they are telling.
What was your visual inspiration?
My very first inspiration was Bracha L. Ettinger’s series of paintings on the myth of Eurydice. While it might not be overtly evident, the colour palette, the abstraction of human form, the ephemerality, and the focus on the gaze all played into the final design of the piece.
Beyond that, Olivia and I both connected strongly with images of nature and the work of Anselm Kiefer and Richard Long. The set design takes great inspiration from their land art, which uses the natural world as a medium to create bold symbols and patterns which offer a reflection point on the intersection between human and nature.
Bracha L. Ettinger, Eurydice, The Graces, Medusa. Oil painting, 2006–2012
My visual inspiration for costume came from images of outdoor festivals and underground raves – I was interested in how different movements of music throughout time have always come with their own dress codes, which in turn express different collective emotions. From the sequins and bright colours of summer festivals like Glastonbury, to the understated goth-grunge of hard techno raves, I wanted to use those codes to express different physical and emotional environments within the piece.
Were there any hard choices to make?
The hardest is letting go of elements that look beautiful but don’t serve a function. But that’s a necessary part of the process to get to a design that supports the story without distracting from it.
What's your favourite part of the design process?
It’s listening to the music and reading the text for the first time and letting my imagination drift wherever it wants to go, to see what those first images and ideas are.
My other favourite part is the first Stage and Orchestra rehearsal, where after months of hard work and preparation, the set, costume, singers, and orchestra are all united for the first time.
Nate Gibson, Designer
Nate is a British-American designer for performance working across film, opera, theatre and dance. He holds an M.A. in Theatre Design from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, and has a background in performance art and sculpture, with a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Art from Alfred University, New York.
His design work for opera includes Die tote Stadt with director Carmen Jakobi (Longborough Festival Opera); Sir John in Love with Harry Fehr (British Youth Opera); The Cunning Little Vixen with Olivia Fuchs (Longborough); Don Giovanni with Martin Lloyd-Evans (Clonter Opera); The Emperor of Atlantis (Loud Crowd & Bold Tendencies); Simplicius Simplicissimus with Polly Graham (Independent Opera); A Christmas Carol (Welsh National Opera); and The Marriage of Figaro with Stephen Medcalf (Clonter Opera).
In theatre, highlights include Clybourne Park with director Anthony Lau, A Bright New Boise with Ros Philips and Pomona with Tess Seddon at LAMDA.
Dance highlights include The Monocle and Murder My Sweet! With Rendez-vous Dance company.
Nate’s work in film has included production design for Mummy’s Present and assisting production designer Natasha Jenkins on the award-winning short Myrtle directed by Patricia McCormack, and the Anywhere Away from Here music video for Rag’n’Bone Man and Pink.
