Wig & Makeup Manager Sarah Fried
By Sam Mittlestedt

In only two hours, Sarah Fried can ensure that an opera’s entire cast and chorus has the proper makeup and hair. It takes two weeks for her to design the makeup scheme and collect or create all the wigs and hairpieces for each person.

Fried, the wig and makeup manager for Arizona Opera, reads each production's libretto early on to get clues to the characters - "One sentence can describe hair color, how they look, or give me some ideas," she says - and considers the era each opera is set in.

"I like doing the shows where you can really research the time period," Fried says. "I'm a history buff, and I love a project." When the director shows up for rehearsals, Fried gets her final orders on how he or she wants the show styled. "It's two weeks, maybe three at the most," she said. "We’re slammed."

Creating a wig from scratch would take five days and about $250 for the hair alone, which makes it prohibitive in terms of time and money. Ideally, Fried can pull most of a given production’s wigs from the hundreds stored in boxes and categorized by color and length in Arizona Opera’s shop. Each might require a little adjustment, but every one is customized with a hand-stitched hairline created from tracings of the singers’ own natural hairlines.

Fried must also work with the wardrobe department to see if the performers' clothing will impede the hair styles. "There are a lot of veils for The Pearl Fishers, so I am just going to pull the women's hair straight back in a bun or braid," she says. "I won't have any problem with veils." And because all the men wear turbans, it was assumed wigs wouldn't be necessary - until the cast actually tried them on.

"As of two days ago, none of them were going to be wearing wigs," Fried says. "As of yesterday, I pulled wigs for every one of them, because we realized the turbans weren't going down far enough."

"If I did the same thing time after time, it would drive me nuts,” she notes. “I like the variety. That makes it challenging."

Her favorite work, such as the large white powdered wigs in Andrea Chenier, require building forms underneath, adding hair and poufs to customize basic styles.

"That's exactly what I enjoy about it the most - the sculpting." Fried says. "I'm taking a welding class now and it's great because it's total structure."