La Fanciulla Del West

Robert Carsen directs La Scala’s new production of Puccini’s musical vision of the American West – ‘La Fanciulla del West’ at Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

Film is used throughout to blur the lines between Puccini’s Western-inspired story and an on-stage cinema audience, who are so affected by the film that they relive it. We start with a cinema setting, and end with the film dissolving into the ‘real life’ of the movie’s opening night.

For this, we re-edited classic westerns to show in our cinema, matching them with our new cast. We then sourced an archive of original unused stunt footage and re-edited it to fit the soundtrack, blended with live video footage as the miners imagine themselves in within the world of the film.

We also supplied print artwork for many of the large scale printed gauzes and backdrops, which we then re-mapped in the projections. The system was programmed on Hippotizer v3 at La Scala, with Christie projectors.

Client:
Teatro alla Scala

Location:
Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy, 2016

Services:
Video & Projection Design
Content Creation

Team:
Video Designer: Ian William Galloway
Researcher: Bella Riza

Production Credits:
Director: Robert Carsen
Set & Costume Designer: Luis Carvalho
Lighting Designer: Peter van Praet

Photos:
© IWG/Mesmer