LUCE estratti LUCE 326_Calafiore_Alessandro Carletti | Page 8

Can you tell us something about
your background?
I consider myself a “workshop boy”,
as lighting is a profession that runs in the family.
I was taught that the theatre is where
you gain experience, and therefore where
you learn, in all the many facets.
The first show I did the lighting for was when
I was 15 years old.
I do not know any other places where to work.
Patience, dedication, perseverance,
determination, and ability to listen. This is my
background, and light is my instrument.
to video mounting systems than to simple
intensity, movement, or time controllers.
Can light in the theatre also be disorienting?
This is a story of when I was a child. My father
was in Rome staging a performance by Carmelo
Bene, and I, as usual, would go to see him in
the theatre. That day I crept in from the artists’
entrance and I went straight towards the stage,
as I was curious to see what was happening.
They were setting up Pinocchio. I reached
the stage, which was completely dark, and
I thought, “OK, now I will wait for some
light and then I will move.” And I waited behind
a scenery flat… Silence… But all of a sudden
all the lights were turned on the giant puppet
master, “Mangiafuoco!”, and I felt very near
to that Giant! See this is an example
of disorientation.
Light works on the senses in every possible
manner, and it is a constant metaphor.
Therefore, it can disorient, and at the
same time it can reassure; but it can also
be frightening, or it might steal a smile.
There is no emotional state that
it cannot express.
1-2 | The Rake’s Progress,
Teatro La Fenice, Venezia, 2014
3 | La Damnation de Faust,
Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, 2018
4-5 | Il Viaggio a Reims,
Dutch National Opera /
Den Kongelige Opera (Copenhagen)
and Opera Australia, 2015
What emotions and what states of mind do you
try to convey in the theatre through the lighting?
In a theatre show, an actor right in the centre
of the scene slowly started to scream, as a light
slowly followed his scream. I was screaming
with that light.
I could tell you what it does not convey,
more than what it conveys.
There are so many emotional states that I have
seen on stage, through singers, actors, and
artists in general, that I find it difficult to answer
your question. I love light and the theatre
because they are emotional instruments,
and I live for emotions.
You often work outside Italy. What are the
technical and operative differences you find
when you are abroad compared to Italy?
Starting with the assumption that every theatre
has particular characteristics that distinguish it,
You collaborate with Damiano Michieletto,
the director who has greatly revolutionized the
director’s approach and the visual effects of
the stage set-up, also using stage settings
in which light has a strongly contemporary style
(I mean in line with contemporary art, light art,
site specific installations). What do you think
about this aspect?
For Damiano Michieletto, nothing must be
an aesthetic gesture but everything must have
a theatrical function, with the wish to tell
a story. I think light has a language that must
be explored as a whole.
What you define as a “contemporary style”
is actually a research process, not so much
a choice of style. It is the desire to be connected,
to follow Damiano’s and Paolo Fantin’s choices,
offering a point of view that is a binder for the
drama, the scene, the costumes, and the music.
What is the first image, place or atmosphere
that you associate with the world light?
A child searching for light in a dark theatre.
In The Rake’s Progress the luminous graphic
sign of the FlexLED traces the seven capital vices,
a reminder of the neon signs that for decades
characterized the urban night-time landscapes.
It becomes light and scenery, finally plunging
onto the stage and lighting the end of the
opera with a last residual glow.
Which processes, choices of style and technique
generated the lighting in this rare set-up of
this opera by Igor Stravinsky?
The fluorescent words were present on stage
like a large cloud hovering over the protagonist,
Tom Rakewell, marking his temptations
and his actions.
At the end of the performance, the moment
of penitence… they collapse and become
a weak source of light. With Paolo Fantin
we searched for a quality of the FlexLED that
enabled us to have a graphic sign as well
as a light source at the same time.
The Rake’s Progress is a strong, harsh
performance that digs into the human soul.
For this reason, also by virtue of Damiano
Michieletto’s theatrical framework, light
has always had an aggressive, almost
cruel connotation.
It is a staging in which I needed versatile
lighting units, from the “bad” and almost
“sick” sources, which were provided by the
HMIs turning green, to the Claypacky K20
fixtures that allowed me to saturate the
scenario with colour, following the colour
trend of the FlexLEDs.
Generally, I use different typologies of light
sources for the stage set; everything depends
on the colorimetric quality I want to obtain.
a super-theatre would be a mix of all the
theatres in the world.
What I have noted abroad is that over the years
there has been the wish to invest in the theatre
machine: moving systems and pulleys, the
ability to change scenes for contexts related
to the repertory or not. In Italy we have
the best human resources ever, which
in my opinion should be supported by more
modern technologies.
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