Edinburgh 2009

Belle Canto’s Opera Hour

Set, costume and marketing collateral design for opera-cabaret crossover show.

The concept behind the show required the design to reflect two ends of the cultural scale: At the one end sits Opera, at the other, Cabaret and somewhere in the middle, the mystical meeting that is the realm of Belle Canto. As the primary player, Belle Canto’s costume embodies this. With its lavish and burlesque silhouette, it retains the opera feel through colour and details such as opera glasses.

The ambitious attempt to portray so may different scenes in such a short period of time created a number of practical demands of the set and costumes.

The costumes were designed to be flexible and to allow for small elements to be changed  that would effect the whole look and transport the actor’s look into the next scenario.

The Marketing collateral that supported the show was created in line with the same design style.

As for the set, it was designed as a series of modules that could be arranged in different ways from scene to scene, suggesting different environments for the action through abstract representation.