Opera Synopses Composer Bios New to Opera? Backstage
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Lighting Design
My name is Chester Dubaj , and I was the lighting designer for the Arizona Opera’s production of Hansel and Gretel. The Arizona Opera approached me to design the show about the middle of this past September. I happily accepted and returned to Arizona on opening night for La Traviata in Tucson . I had the luxury of arriving very early for Hansel and Gretel, and it gave me a chance to be involved with more production meetings and rehearsals.
Shortly after I arrived in Arizona , the CD of the opera that I’d ordered arrived. Armed with that CD and a score, I listened and read, and listened again, taking notes in the score which would later evolve into lighting cues. Lighting cues are what we call a specific look that you see created by lighting on stage. If it’s daylight when the duet begins, and a scary blue night when it ends, the chances are you’ve been witness to a lighting cue. The studying of the music and score is the first step towards ideas for looks and placements in lighting.
Rehearsals for Hansel and Gretel started, around October 25th, and the day before I actually met the director for the first time at a production meeting. Production meetings are basic forums where the different departments of the Opera come together to discuss common goals, needs and ideas for the show. In this particular case, the director, Kelly Robinson, was the nominal chair, and he shared with us his vision for the show, and we shared with him our input.
During the rehearsal process, I was given CAD (computer aided design, I believe is the acronym) plans for Hansel and Gretel’s set. From those plans, I designed a lighting plot. The lighting plot is the graphic plan for where lights will end up on stage. By looking at the set drawings for Hansel and Gretel, I can determine where I’ll need a light, where it can actually hit the specific set piece or person, and where it can’t. So, for example, I can determine that if I want to light Hansel in the strawberry jail in act III, I have to place a light down stage, as opposed to mid-stage or upstage.
By combining the lighting plot and notes and ideas for lighting cues, it’s possible to come up with a fair idea of how the show will be lit before we even get on stage. Which is a very good thing, because time on stage is quite limited. On this show, we started to hang lights at 12:01am on Saturday the 9th of November. We continued until 8am that morning, some of us returning to work at 6pm that same day. The set was constructed on Saturday, Sunday, and part of Monday, and I started to focus the light’s we’d hung on Monday afternoon.
We started to put lighting cues together on Tuesday evening during rehearsals, and continued over Wednesday, Thursday, and even Friday, opening night. The end result was a world lit for Hansel and Gretel to play in, a world of magic and fear, of warmth and family. It is my sincere hope that those of you who saw it, enjoy ed it, and I thank you for your time and support.
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