LUCE estratti LUCE 326_Calafiore_Alessandro Carletti | Page 7

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An opera that I greatly appreciated, also thanks
to your significant work, was La Damnation
de Faust, where you created a saturation
of space by using light, as in a large television
set (which included a steadycam) constantly
dominated by a white light. Which processes
and elaborations did you choose with
the director, Damiano Michieletto?
With Damiano Michieletto and the scenographer
Paolo Fantin it is a process that takes place
all through the staging; there is a constant,
continuous research.
Damiano’s direction is “luminous” in its
essence, it is descriptive; the indications
for the light are almost the same he offers
the interpreters, everything has a weight,
nothing is there by chance. I could define
it a High-Definition direction. I love him for this.
In Faust the need was to blend Paolo’s
four environments – the choir positioned
in the higher part of the stage, the area where
the acting took place, the two corridors and
the video – into the same abstraction (no place,
no time). Everything had to have the same
value, and white offers this level of abstraction.
The difficulty was to maintain, for the entire
duration of the show, the same quality of white,
cold, reaching the limit that eyesight could bear
and not exceeding it. All this bearing in mind
an important requirement: television filming.
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LUCE 326 / LANTERNA MAGICA
At the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, you dealt
with the staging of the contemporary opera
Aquagranda, once again directed by Damiano
Michieletto and dedicated to the 1966 flood
that caused enormous damages in the city.
Water and Light: two vital elements that had
to be represented in a dramatic circumstance.
What were the lines you followed when
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What role does technology have in your work?
The evolution of LEDs and the constant
development in motorized projectors have
generated a new grammar and a new theatre
light aesthetics; what are your thoughts with
regard to this aspect?
Light is a consequence of technology.
Without going deep into history, it is sufficient
to compare a candle and a LED, and we
can already understand this proportion.
What is important, in my opinion, is the
construction of the “luminous idea” and to
be able to have it clear: in its colour, intensity,
and especially in the visual context in which
it is seen. For this, the new technologies come
to our support, because the more we progress,
the more I realize that there are no limits
with regard to fantasy, which, I repeat, must
be a fundamental element. The risk in using
“new technologies” – I would like to point
out that motorized units have been on the
market since more or less twenty years –
is to be or to describe a technical gesture
rather than an emotional one.
I am certainly curious about new products that
enter the market, and I am fascinated by the
course followed by those companies in the sector
that update and improve their light experience.
Finally, as I have always claimed, lighting control
consoles have become much more similar
designing the lights that in a symbolic
and suggestive manner accompanied the
notes and the actions on stage?
When staging this opera, music was the course I
followed… I interpreted it as a constant
crescendo that poured into the great tide that
submerged the lagoon. Water was the
fundamental element of the stage setting, and
light tried to support it: from the growing tide,
which Paolo Fantin showed as a large tank that
was constantly filling, up to the moment of calm
after the storm, when the whole theatre was
surrounded with light reflections.
In this case light followed the timescale
of the opera, from the Venetian mist to the
first signs of the rising tide, up to the drama.
This opera was greatly felt by the theatre and
by the city itself; I avoided focusing on light
dynamics and technical details, and, as far
as possible, I tried to turn in into water.