Stefano Poda, Faust

At the Israeli Opera, Tel Aviv-Yafo – IL, 6 to 25 March 2017. A co-production of Tel Aviv Opera, Teatro Regio di Torino, Opéra de Lausanne

In Poda’s Faust, a huge ring occupies the scene, surrounded by an architectonic box enclosing the stage. The ring, which rotates and takes different inclinations, creates different settings according to the different scenes. It is almost an “archaic monolith”, an allegory of life itself. “It is the circle encompassing the experience of life,” Poda said, it is the ring “in which contemplation chases action and vice versa, the earth chases the sky and everything turns to dust, it is the sign of the covenant between God and man.” For Poda, the circle’s main function is to trigger questions in the spectator. He then has a further effect: while looking at it, gradually, one has the impression of the ring rolling towards the observer, as a giant wheel. “In my opinion,” Poda said, “powerful images must take multiple values so that the viewer will discover himself as a self-spectator.”

The stage is enclosed in two architectonic boxes. A first, dark box, treated in surface with black matte stone-like modular elements, slowly rises leaving uncovered the external, light coloured, architectonical scene: three walls with narrow and tall openings. The ring is installed on a revolving stage, on which most of the action takes place in a continuous rotational movement, and is inclined by means of a hydraulic drive system. All surfaces are treated with rough textures, whose dramatic contribution to the scene changes depending on the lighting, reaching its maximum with the use of wall grazing lights which accentuate the textures creating a suggestive atmosphere.

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