*Theoretical Design
Director: Kelly Whitesell
Scenography: Christina J. Garner, Miranda L. Fyfe, Siyi Xiang
Lighting Design: Kayo Tokuue
Shadow Puppetry Design: Harley Walker
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Opera Omaha - Orpheum Theater
This was our team's theoretical design for the Opera America Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Prize with an excerpt about our concept.
Our concept sets Mozart’s Idomeneo in the present-day, and uses shadow puppetry to evoke the piece’s mythological origins.
By utilizing one of the world’s oldest and most widely used living art forms, we explore the dichotomy between Neptune’s ancient traditions and the mortal nature of familial struggle.
By utilizing one of the world’s oldest and most widely used living art forms, we explore the dichotomy between Neptune’s ancient traditions and the mortal nature of familial struggle.
As a team of non-male-identifying directors/designers, we are portraying Idamante as a female-identifying character (which complements the nature of this part as a trouser-role), and exploring her connection with Idomeneo as father and daughter. This adds a queer dynamic to the romantic relationships, dismantling the classic portrayal of helpless young women and powerful older men, and turning the divine conflict into one of religious moral question.
Neptune may guide the Idomeneo of ancient Crete, but to whom does a modern Idomeneo owe his allegiance, and what happens when the gods force him to choose between religion and relation?
