LUCE estratti LUCE 322_Calafiore_Conversazione con Pasquale Mari | Page 9

possible; I do not believe in additive colour
mixing, and therefore the LED projectors
become extraordinary instruments for me only
if they are also equipped with single sources
of white light that can be measured and that
are powerful enough to be used independently
with a Colour Rendering Index (CRI) that is not
less than 90. Having said this, I would also like
to teasingly say that I will stop working in this
sector when PAR stage lamps will be out
of production… There is nothing as simple
and versatile (and analogue) on stage that
can interpret (just like an actor) a sun’s ray,
its warmth, its capacity to materialize the air
and objects. Generally, this “economy”
in the use of atmospheric instruments implies
an interaction with the director during
rehearsals, where I try to be present as much
as possible in order to be able to tack on
a luminous dress that must not be a cage
for the actors or singers, but must coincide,
with no apparent effort, with their movements
on stage, meeting them on stage when they
sing those acute notes or recite monologues,
systematically not using stage gimmicks such
as followspots.
Andrea Chénier di Umberto Giordano, regia Mario Martone, 2017
In the square space of the scene in Maria
Stuarda there are two main forces, that
of being closed and that of being open, the
opaque and the transparent. With light,
I played around with oil painting and water
colour techniques. The light outside presses
from the very beginning against the opaque
and slightly opened walls where Maria is
imprisoned, producing a perimeter of abstract
geometric light on the floor. It is sufficient,
with a purely theatrical trick, to lift a black
cloth curtain and the light then flows onto
the walls revealing the consistency of paper,
and the texture of trunks and leaves lit from
behind. We are now in the forest-garden
of the second act.
In your approach and in the projects you have
developed in the past years, how have you
used LED light sources and fixtures? Is mixing
and balancing traditional projectors and
new technologies a part of your practical
experience? I remember a recurring definition
in your discussions, the “distilled use of
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LUCE 322 / LANTERNA MAGICA
light…” How does this method and approach
meet and confront the requirements of the
director, of the scenic design and staging
in a lyric opera?
This is what I mean when I say “distilled use
of light”. Making it flow from coordinates
of space and time on stage or the set, in a
severely controlled quantity and quality.
Not much colour, a great faith in the
possibilities of creating emotions from the
simple modulation of white colour
temperatures (and here the cinema and
theatre meet) and the consequent choice
of lighting fixtures with regard to the quality
of their basic emission. These range from
the incandescent light of a candle to that
of a tungsten filament, up to the “cold”
whites of arc lamps.
I started using LED technology only after
the projectors were equipped with a sufficient
number of natively white diodes that could
be mixed with the other primary components
of the colour spectrum. I am used to making
light from a choice of as few components as
Let us turn on the spotlights of the Teatro
alla Scala on the Andrea Chénier…
Andrea Chénier is born from dark black.
He turns towards it; he comes from it.
The facades and volumes that are progressively
suggested by Margherita Palli attract and repel
the Story by exploiting the attractive and
centrifugal force of a pivoting floor, almost
as big as the stage of la Scala, which traces
the vanishing lines and the origin of light from
the surrounding darkness.
In Martone’s Chénier there is really a
self-sufficient world on stage, where light
photographs the action following the tempo
of the music, and then again dissolves in to
the black darkness. Ideally it is as if the scene
is viewed from 360° and perhaps it is the opera
where I have used frontal lighting least.
This is because there is no absolute front,
and large mirror surfaces reflect the world that
turns around the crystal of the scene; at times,
these are transparent, allowing a passage into
what is beyond, behind, on the side, in front.
And from the very theatre hall, with the
rotation of the principal directions of light,
the followspot projector, the main instrument
used in frontal lighting, plays this time a role.
That ray of light, which pinpoints the tenor
singing his first air, which ideally originates
from the eye of the spectator, finds its
counterpart in the finale, in a ray of light that,
instead, comes from far behind the stage,
an abstract sun in the sunrise that is evoked
in the final verses of the opera and that wraps
the protagonists with a light that comes
from behind, calling them to their destiny.
A frontal ray of light at the beginning calls
for life; another one, equal and opposite,
finally pull Madeleine and Andrea towards
Death, and the black background is lifted
at last leaving a blinding white light…
It is coming with the sunbeams!
Death comes in the wake of morn!
Death comes on the wing of dawn!
With the morning golden light!