Case study
From art to engineering How a team of engineers turned an artistic vision for a bold new stage design for Verdi’s opera “Rigoletto” into a fully articulated, structurallyoptimised 12 metre high clown
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into every performance that takes the design to a whole new level. The project is the result of meticulous planning carried out by engineering firm Lener & Schmid Ingenieure ZT GmbH. It took more than two years to bring the Rigoletto stage design to life, from initial idea to the final delivery. Gerhard Lener, the engineer that heads up the project, is no stranger to stage design. Rigoletto is the tenth Bregenz Festival project he has been involved with in 20 years. This, however, is his most elaborate to date: “The more movement there is in a IMAGE COURTESY OF KARL FORSTER
he Bregenz Festival in Austria is internationally renowned for its spectacular productions held on a large floating stage on Lake Constance. The current stage design for Verdi’s opera “Rigoletto”, however, surpasses all previous ones in a special way. The structure on the lake stage weighs a full 140 tonnes and is a marvellous combination of art and engineering. The twelve-metre-high clown head and equally long hands are impressive in their own right. But it’s the sophisticated stage technology that sets the structure in motion and breathes life
Actors and singers perform in front of, on top of, and even inside the head
construction like this, the more challenging it is for us,” he explains. “And this one was meant to have maximum movement. It is more of a machine than a static structure.”
A machine as a stage Rigoletto’s head can move in a multitude of different ways. A swivel drive directs the head, which weighs tons, up, down, left or right during the performance. A total of eight drives are used to show facial expressions to match the action on stage. Eyelids open and close, eyeballs move up and down, and the mouth can also open or close as desired. The hollow head can accommodate up to ten performers who use it as part of the stage. To the left and right of the head are two hands, whose six-metre-long fingers can also be individually controlled by means of a hydraulic swivel drive, so that their movement resembles that of a human. In his left hand, Rigoletto holds a real balloon with a diameter of 14 metres, which is filled with more than 1,300 cubic metres of helium and - when weather and wind conditions allow - rises into the night sky during the performance.
Realising the vision The idea for the imposing stage set came from the stage designers, who turned to Lener & Schmid to help deliver on their vision. Away from the Bregenz Festival, the 56
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