Backstage with Matthew: Gilding an empire

I am so excited about what is coming to life as we move into final rehearsals. Musically, dramatically, and visually this is an extraordinary new work that encompasses both the epic and the intimate, propelling forward across empires of antiquity but reminding us at every step of its connection to the here and now. Director Elkhanah Pulitzer and her creative team have come up with a beautiful world that fuses both antiquity and 1930s Hollywood—characters who have maintained iconic status across history. We’re going to take a look at some of the stunning work that our Costume Shop is finalizing, particularly those pieces made by our Crafts and Millinery departments. It’s a lot of gold…

Our Crafts and Millinery Team: Kelly Koehn, Kathy Roberts, Jersey McDermott, and Paula Wheeler.

Costume designer Constance Hoffman (also designer for our Mozart trilogy) has created exquisite designs for the production, blending influences of antiquity and the 1930s. There is one scene in which we see the familial unit of Cleopatra, Antony, and their children, taking part in a piece of political theater, the Donations of Alexandria. The family is decked out in layer upon layer of gold, and it’s a great way to showcase the shared projects of Jersey McDermott, our Senior Crafts Artisan and Paula Wheeler, our Senior Milliner.

Ptolemy and Cesarion (Donation scene) Credit: Constance Hoffman

On the left of Constance’s costume design above, please meet “Bert.” No, not the young boy, but rather the lion on his head! Lovingly named Bert in homage to Bert Lahr, the actor who played the Lion in the Wizard of Oz. Bert is a recreation of a lion helmet featured in a statue of Alexander the Great, who associated himself with Heracles (top left in the photos below). Jersey sculpted a clay model of the lion, out of which she made a silicon mold (top right). From this she created prototypes to determine the material used for the helmet. She first tried a hard clay-like material (the grey helmets bottom right), but that was too rigid, so she tried a much lighter foam material (the white top helmet) which worked well. This was then applied to a papier-mâché helmet and brim created by Paula. I’ll go more in a moment to the gold painting process, but you can see Jersey sporting Bert in the bottom right.

The various stages of Bert from design inspiration to silicon mold to prototypes to his final incarnation!

Other head pieces called for different techniques. The soprano and mezzo choristers wear a headpiece for the Battle of Actium which needed to be lightweight, easy to make en masse, and durable. Jersey turned to vacuum forming in which a sheet of plastic is stretched over a mold by creating a vacuum. Jersey used a silicon mold formed from a clay model (top right) to create a durable mold (bottom right) that could be sent off to create 20 vacuum-formed helmets offsite. The helmets are created out of two halves that are then fused together with a clever seam that is hidden amidst the tessellating shapes (left).

Helmets for the Battle of Actium, vacuum formed out of a mold created by Jersey.

Let’s talk about painting for a moment. Much of what you’re seeing here is painted gold, but creating a palette of gold that not only reads well from the house, but also is nuanced, varied, and has depth requires more than just spray painting everything. Much of what you see here is painted first with glue and then gold leafed using an inexpensive bronze leafing (top left below); because this will tarnish over time and in order to create depth, a “French Enamel Varnish” or FEV is applied. This is a homemade mixture that Jersey creates using shellack, denatured alcohol, and leather dye (lower left below). It is applied to the piece (whether the helmet above or the laurel wreath below), creating a durable, authentic looking piece.   

Gold-leafing, theatrical style.

Other headpieces have been made by Paula Wheeler, our Senior Milliner, being built piece by piece to realize the designs. Below are two very varied headpieces. On the left is Cleopatra’s exquisite headpiece, built up from a felt cap that is wired to hold its shape and then covered then covered in gold leather. From that, shapes are added using a material called “Worbla,” a thermoplastic that comes in sheets that resemble thick cardboard. This allows Paula to create rigid, durable forms that look like metal. The Worbla pieces, once glued onto the flat-patterned felt shapes that are wired and leather covered, then get a layer of gold leaf. After assemply, the whole piece will have FEV applied to enrich the gold color and seal the leaf to prevent tarnishing. On the right is the ‘eggplant hat’ used for one of the children in the design by Constance above. This is made in papier-mâché, using a form created for an old Aida production, modified for this production and enhanced with leather strips attached to the side. And of course, leafed and FEV’d.

Paula with just two of her stunning creations.

One of the most impressive headpieces is Antony’s elaborate creation, also worn for the Donations of Alexandria. You can see Constance Hoffman’s beautiful design below. It is as though Antony’s very hair has become gold plated!

Antony as Dionysus (Donations scene) Credit: Costance Hoffman

Below is Paula’s realization of Constance’s design. The wig uses a lightweight skull-cap in which are sewn ruffled ribbons that have been shaped to create the feel of long, flowing hair. On top of that goes a wreath made from leaves painted gold and leafed, berries, and vines. It is going to look spectacular!

Antony’s headpiece for the Donations of Alexandria.

Yet another technique used to create craft pieces for this production is 3-D printing. To create the elaborate neck pieces made up of individual tiles (bottom left), Jersey 3-D printed the tiles to get the variety of sizes needed. These were then sprayed gold before being FEV’d down in the Craft Shop’s dye room. You can get a sense from Jersey’s table (top of the photo below) just how many tools, paints, and techniques go into her work. It is a process of experimentation, working to find the best method to create the particular piece, and it’s extraordinary to see the diversity of techniques used in this production. 

Not everything is gold in the production. In fact, many of the costumes are rooted in the 1930s, including the world of Caesar which is very heavily influenced by 1930s Italy.

You will see a fair amount of armor, and I wanted to give you a sense of how Jersey and her team has been creating the suits of armor that appear throughout the production—particularly in the Battle of Actium, but elsewhere as well, including a number of dramatic sequences for Antony.

First, dress forms are enhanced to create some prominent pecs and abs (foiled dress form bottom left below). On top of this are shaped layers of the aforementioned Worbla to create a flexible structure. The layers are then covered in leather, which is wet at a particular temperature to make it stretchy. Once leatherized, edges are finished, detail is added, and the suits of armor are then taken to Amy van Every in our dye shop, who paints them black for Caesar’s army and brown for Antony’s. We’ve made around 30 suits of armor for the chorus, dancers, and supers.

Jersey with the suits of armor in various stages.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what has been created for this production by the Crafts and Millinery department. Leather arm cuffs, gold bird hats, jewelry, and much more. Because of the pandemic, everything has been on a much more expedited schedule than usual, but also delayed because of supply chains. Despite all of this, the Costume Shop has powered through to prepare everything for the piano dress rehearsal—the first time we saw all of the costumes onstage. This is all in addition to the many, many costumes that are being worked on in the Norby Anderson Costume Shop, and then transferred to costume racks in the basement where Manuel Gutierrez, our Production Coordinator, logs them and prepares them for transfer to the stage. 

Costume racks for Antony and Cleopatra waiting to be transferred to the Opera stage.

The Norby Anderson Costume Shop is busier than it has ever been since we moved into the Wilsey Center in 2015. It’s a testament to the superlative talents of the people who work there under the leadership of our Costume Director Daniele McCartan that they are producing not just Antony and Cleopatra, but three complete new productions this fall after three new productions last year. I cannot wait to share their work with you! This is a level of artistry that defines San Francisco as one of the great creative capitals of the world, and this production of Antony and Cleopatra will be a spectacular way to launch our second century! 

The Norby Anderson Costume Shop working at full tilt to prepare for the Centennial Season.