Intermezzo

Watch Der Freischütz from Baden Baden live on Monday

Set your controls for arte.tv.

The French TV arts channel will be broadcasting Robert Wilson's new production of Der Freischütz live from Baden-Baden on Monday 1 June - with simultaneous online streaming. And it's free!

Streaming begins at 6.30pm local time (5.30pm UK time) with interviews and backstage stuff, and the performance itself starts at 7pm (or 6pm here).

The production's costumes by Viktor & Rolf are spectacular even by operatic standards, featuring men dressed as trees, women dressed as bouquets, and gazillions of Swarovski crystals. In a programme at 10.30pm tonight (but sadly not online), Arte discuss the project with the designers.

teh crystals!

 

Bob Wilson yet again fails to embrace pictorial realism:

Lots more info, photos - even a full libretto - on Arte's website. And here's a video of rehearsal clips the Festspielhaus have put together:

and here's one with Viktor and Rolf about the costumes:

Viktor & Rolf whip out their Bedazzlers

The New York Times interviews Viktor and Rolf about their eagerly-awaited costume designs for Robert Wilson's new Baden Baden production of Der Freischütz .

The chorus wear black neoprene dirndls and lederhosen, and the heroine Agathe is a singing bouquet of giant flowers ("the costume is very heavy and hot" V&R admit). Close on a million Swarovski crystals were used to make costumes sparkle under Robert Wilson's spectacular lighting.

"The kitschy aspect seemed to fit well with a 19-century German Romantic opera," they say.

This may be the last we see of the duo in the opera house though. They confess "we are not big opera lovers," and "we want to keep our theatre efforts to a minimum, as we want to focus as much as possible on fashion."

 

 

  
Photos by Dennis Yenmez, sketches courtesy of Viktor and Rolf

Viktor & Rolf's opera premiere

Genius art-frockers Viktor & Rolf  are to follow up their Spring 2008 'violins' collection, below, with another musical venture.

Taking their first plunge into operatic waters, they will design the costumes for Robert Wilson's new Baden-Baden production of Der Freischütz, which opens on 30 May 2009.

Wilson's trademark strike-a-pose style should allow them to ignore quotidian dullities like can you move in it? and indulge in the complex constructions they are famed for.

Though this classic from 2005 might be more suitable for the audience: