Cunning Little Vixen
| Cunning Little Vixen | |
|---|---|
| |
| The Cunning Vixen And Mr Badger | |
| Written by | |
| Leoš Janáček | |
| Director | |
| Elaine Tyler-Hall | |
| Venues | |
| The Theatre Royal | |
| The Edinburgh Festival Theatre | |
Following last year's sell out success of War and Peace, the annual collaboration between Scotland’s national conservatoire and Scotland’s national opera company was a revival of the landmark production of The Cunning Little Vixen created by David Pountney. It toured starting in the Theatre Royal Glasgow fininshing in the Edinburgh Festival Theatre.
Set
Construction
The set was constructed using a series of gates and tops. The gates were wooden frames and the tops were large flooring units, sculpted to have the appearance of hills.
Below is a daigram (not to scale) of how the gates were organised, and how the tops were laid out on top.
Challanges
There were a number of challanges involved in constructing the set. Below is a bullet pointed list of some of the challanges and solutions.
- All the gates had a number of markups on them, including one set in Hebrew, as the set is over 20 years old and has toured many location, including Israel. After figuring out how the set went together we remarked everything and made a diagram to allow us to be able to rebuild the set when we needed.
- If we bolted the gates together first it was much harder to get the tops to fit into the gate. However, if we put the tops on first it was much harder to get the bolt holes to align. We decided for the most part to put the tops on the gates first then move the piece into position. Overall this was the more effective of the two methods.
- Many of the tops didn't fit flush inside the gates, even when square. On occasion we had to move guide block or attach hinges to ensure the tops stayed in place.
- The whole set had a habit of shifting after long periods of use. Hinges were put it attaching key gates to the deck to stop it moving.
- The DS 3 rows trucked open and shut. When they shut the tops didn't always stay flush all the way from DS to US, presenting a health and safety hazard. We spent a lot of time during fit up making sure the interior flooring was put down square, and making sure the trucks were square. However there was no perfect fix for this as over time the trucks would go squint as the tracks were too wide. For future perfomances of the production with the set was being used again I would suggest rebuilding the floor to make it span wider and building tighter tracks for the trucks.
- No matter how careful we were during fit up, the set always sat slightly differently, sometimes leaving gaps between tops. A lot of times the only way to fix this was to hit it with the big mallet.
There were a lot of little issues that arose with the set. Some were due to the age and condition of the set, and some were purely down to the jigsaw nature of the set. Very few could've been seen in advance and many could only be solved using brute force. This was not a complicated, technical set, just heavy and difficult.
Technical Elements
Masking
The Cyc
Flying Pieces
The Birds
In the show there were three actors suspended above stage sat in arm chairs. The flying solution was designed by AFX a company that specialises in performer flying.
