Research and Process Sketches for ​
Julius Caesar The Florentine Opera March 2014 Director: Eric Einhorn Costume Designer: Christianne Myers Final production renderings and photos can be found ​
here​
. Beginning in December 2013, the fifteen month long development of a new production of ​
Julius Caesar​
for The Florentine Opera was a collaborative and gratifying process. Director, Eric Einhorn, initiated our meetings with the idea to place the opera in the early part of the 20th Century during Mussolini's occupation of Libya. This firmly rooted our research and allowed us to create two distinct worlds- the colonizing Europeans, and the Egyptian royalty. General Inspirational research: 1930s Tourism posters, left Ideas for show palette, below The Egyptians Cleopatra An early find in my research was the discovery of how heavily the designer Mariano Fortuny had been influenced by Northern Africa. I was familiar with his recognizable pleating texture and his designs from the 1930’s, but his earlier fashion work served as my inspiration for Cleopatra. I also studied late 19th and early 20th century costumes from Egypt & Libya as well as ancient Egyptian costume research. left to right: 1) Fortuny robe, informing Finale, 2) Fortuny tea gown 3) Early 19th C Neo-Classical, as Virtue, 4) Fortuny gown, as battle dress 5) 12th C BC Egyptian statue 6) 19th C. jacket Menswear Nomadic North African costume is greatly informed by the climate. I wanted to establish a difference between the Court world and the Desert world of the warriors. When in Court, the costumes reflected older silhouettes; I looked to the Tuareg people as an influence for desert attire. top to bottom: 1) Turban 2) Tuareg figure, 3) Tuareg tagulmust in traditional indigo fabric 4) Desert riders 5) Early 20th C. Tuareg Man 6) Contemporary desert warrior 7) 17th C Algerian robe 8) Ancient Egyptian costume 9) Egyptian riding costume w/ convertible sleeves The Italians The Military For both Caesar and Curio, the design was straightforward, clearly informed by early 20th C. European military silhouettes. There are many photos of Mussolini available. The only real challenge was adapting the uniform to work for a pants role, since a soprano sang the title role. Caesar’s jacket also turned into a prop (with a thankful bit of creativity on the director’s part, Caesar jumped into the sea ​
after​
removing his jacket) as Cleopatra then donned it preparing for battle. left to right: 1) King Idris, leader of the Saudi with his handlers 2) Benito Mussolini 3) Mussolini in Northern Africa 4) lower rank, Italian uniform Civilians Sesto, also a pants role, is a 12-14 year old boy who matures quickly during the opera. We decided he would change from short to long pants to demonstrate that shift. He wore a Norfolk suit and cap. ​
(Norfolk suit photos, right) His mother, Cornelia, transforms as well. She starts as a buttoned up, tailored woman in a traveling suit, and is then stripped on stage to reveal her late Edwardian undergarments. She is made a part of Tolomeo’s seraglio and wears an odd mash-up of harem accessories with her Italian clothing. left to right: 1 & 2) Traveling suit 3) Ottoman harem 4) Edwardian undergarments There were other minor characters in the mix, but this first round of research started to inform the flavor of the whole piece. After our initial phone meeting, I completed a scene breakdown and a cheat sheet of the proposed looks for each character. We then met in person a few weeks later to talk through the entire show and study the research I provided. In hindsight, I would made my initial cheat sheet larger with more room to take notes. It was time to put something down on paper. I began by developing ​
very​
rough sketches. The North African clothing was new to me, so by drawing, I was learning how the clothing draped on the body. I shared these with Eric, and we began to develop the design. Rough sketches left to right: 1) Caesar, 2) Cleopatra basic dress, 3) Cornelia travel suit, 4) Achillas, 5) Sesto, 6) Tolomeo 7) Cornelia foundations, 8) Cornelia seraglio, 9) Cleopatra as Lydia, 10) Cleopatra as Virtue, 11) Cleopatra Battle dress, 12) Cleopatra Next, a process of refinement. After that phone meeting, the only character we didn’t land was Tolomeo. Eric wanted him to be a playboy-sort of a odd Fabio, sexualized spoiled boy-man. For awhile he was only in an Egyptian skirt, but by final dress, he was (thankfully) wearing pants underneath. Each sketch was adjusted and details added.​
(examples below: Caesar, Cleopatra and Cornelia) After this next round of adjustments and phone meetings, I drafted a clean line version of each rendering that I then shrank down to experiment with color, quickly, in marker. I have found these tight line drawings are particularly helpful for the shop staff, especially when I am in a different city and unable to check in, in person, regularly. I have found this clarity, though sometimes at the expense of a lovely loose rendering style, makes for a more accurate budget assessment earlier on. What evolved was a vocabulary of layers, and layers that were appropriated by various characters as political power shifted during the story-telling. It made the costume tracking tricky, as it is unusual for opera singers to share costume pieces throughout a show. To address the need for continuity, I made a pictorial costume plot with a thumbnail for each scene each character was in. With my colored thumbnails and clean line drawings in hand, in August, I began fabric swatching. There was a lot of white linen needed for the Egyptians, so we planned to order that fabric wholesale. I found an iridescent metallic on sale in Chicago that seemed perfect for Virtue’s wings, that we bought while it was still available. I went to New York and spent a day shopping, and then met with Eric in person to look at swatches and talk through the whole show once more. At the end of the summer, the shop manager was back on contract, and we began to discuss scope, a time line, and the work flow. Even though there was no Chorus in our production, there were many looks to build. From the clean line drawings we were able to generate all the necessary paperwork to budget the show. This was the first show where she and I collaborated on a “live” google document. I had roughed in a ballpark per costume budget number, and then filled in a complete pieces list. We worked together to develop a cost estimate for each item, and then Mel, the shop manager, added all the construction detail costs. That live document remained active throughout the entire process. That November we had a collective shift in our approach to Cleopatra's costume as Virtue. Eric had conceived her atop a raked pedestal and I had designed giant Isis wings that she would manipulate during
her aria. This structure would require a skirted armature. Along with the production manager and technical director, we began to brainstorm a solution. The big roadblock came when we discovered that after all the
cuts were made to our production of the score, and the intermission moved, she would only have a minute to
get in and out of this contraption. After a skype meeting, and a flurry of emails, it was back to the drawing table. As I looked back, the new designs were already there in the research: a draped wrap from the neo-classical painting. It is cocoon-like, as she, too, is about to undergo a transformation. As fall turned into winter, I completed the renderings and ordered the rest of the fabric. Fittings began in mid-February with the four local talent (Curio, Nirena and the Supers), and then we were in full production mode. I returned to Milwaukee mid-March to fit the principles. There was a very quick turn around as there are only two weeks of staging rehearsals before going into tech week. I converted the that served as the run thumbnail drawing version of the plot into an easily editable ​
Google Slide document​
sheets for the dressers. This was a new way for me to work “in the cloud,” and one that I will certainly use again. Understandably, things were a bit rough at first dress rehearsal, but things quickly wrapped up, and we left final dress with very few notes to finish before opening. I was pleased with the visual outcome, and look forward to the opportunity of working with this director again.