J. William Davis - THEATRICS - Death in Venice

The Games
of Apollo

Youths play
at the beach

The streets
of Venice

Aschenbach's
dream

Traveller +
Aschenbach

Boat to
Venice

Gondolier +
Aschenbach

Streets of Venice

Barber +
foppish
Aschenbach

The Strolling
Players

The beach

Gondola to
the Lido

Boat to
Venice

Münich Cemetery

Benjamin Britten

Glyndebourne Opera House

Director: David Edwards

The opera Death in Venice tells of a widowed novelist, Gustav von Aschenbach, and his fateful meeting with the Polish boy Tadzio and his family while on holiday in Venice. Underlying Aschenbach's infatuation with the youth is the spread of cholera across the city.

The stage is gently raked. The translucent floor are underlit to express various areas of water: the sea, the lagoon and canals. Vertical painted translucent scrim screens glide across the playing area to create various degrees of enclosure including large sea vistas, the Lido's beach, the streets of Venice and interior rooms. Their movement creates smooth cinematic-like transitions between scenes.

The clothing is true to the pre World War I era of the opera. The Citizens of Venice have simple clothing; the Hotel Guests wear opulent society dress.

The roles of the Traveller, the Fop, the Old Gondolier, the Hotel Manager, the Barber and the Lead Strolling Player and are played by one baritone. He has the same moustache and glasses throughout; each of his costumes is a variation on one style.

The colours become more and more muted, as Aschenbach's grasp on reality fades; The colours of Tadzio and his mother's clothing become more intense as Aschenbach's infatuation with the youth grows.

Aschenbach's clothes, hats, shoes and facial hair gradually take on more and more of the characteristics of the fop he despises.

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The strolling players arrive dressed in the costumes of the Commedia d'Arte. They distribute fop-like masks to the hotel guests in their formal evening wear in faded colours

The bathing women and the youths wear traditional turn of the century swimming costumes on the beach.

The Polish Family walk through the streets of Venice. Tadzio and his mother's clothing are bight and clean in contrast to the local Venetians.

The gondolier, with the same moustache as the Fop, dresses in white with a large gondolier hat. Aschenbach is in a heavy winter suit.

On the boat to Venice the crew and youths are dressed in blue. The heavily made-up elderly Fop dresses in a summer suit. Aschenbach is dressed in sombre urban clothes.

The traveller, in traditional Bavarian dress, carries a hand satchel. Aschenbach wears a dark double breasted wool overcoat and Hamburg hat.

Crazy dreams shake Aschenbach's sleep. Dionysian dancers swarm around his bed as the translucent panels move frantically and disruptively across the stage.

The translucent screens glide across the stage forming the intimate streets of Venice. Transfixed by the youth Tadzio, Aschenbach follows the Polish family around the city,

The Games of Apollo: Tadzio and the other boys play in the sea by the beach games.

Aschenbach and the hotel guests watch boys' beach games. He imagines that they participate in The Games of Apollo. The underlit floor marks the sea edge by the beach.

Aschenbach journeys to the Lido on a gondola, represented by a dark portion of the underlit stage floor and a simple chair. The gondolier propels the gondola with a long pole.

Aschenbach wears make-up and has his hair dyed by the Barber; this transforms him into the elderly fop of whom he was so dismissive en route to Venice.

Youths, leaning against a rail , shout to girls on shore from the boat to Venice. The Fop, watched by Aschenbach, appears on deck. The sea is represented by the underlit floor.

While wandering through a Münich cemetery, lamenting the apparent loss of his creativity, the widowed novelist Aschenbach hears a traveller sing of the glories of far-off lands.

Death in Venice

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