“In the opera ‘Der Rosenkavalier,’ an elderly princess sings about stopping all the clocks in the middle of the night. Time is portrayed as something fleeting, coursing silently between the characters like sand in an hourglass. Time often plays a significant role in operatic plots, whether it’s the evil machinations in ‘Rigoletto’ timed to the toll of a village clock or the haunting ‘clock scene’ in ‘Boris Godunov.’ However, this year, there has been a trend in using clocks as set designs in opera productions worldwide.
One opera closely associated with clocks is Maurice Ravel’s ‘L’heure espagnole,’ a one-act farce about a neurotic clockmaker and his unfaithful wife. At the Grimeborn Opera Festival in East London, they have taken a unique approach to the set design of this opera. Instead of using massive grandfather clocks, the characters wear masks of clocks with circling numbers. In addition to this, there are singing clocks dressed in black overcoats with masks and white gloves who create a tick-tock soundscape before the performance begins.
At the Glyndebourne summer opera festival in southern England, ‘L’heure espagnole’ has been a popular production. The designers of the set, Caroline Ginet and Florence Evrard, aimed to enrich the story through their design. The set reflects the accumulation of the clockmaker’s life and the neurosis affecting the characters. The protagonist’s wife, Concepción, is buried in household objects, symbolizing her time running out. The various clocks in the set were found in old Parisian clock companies and a local watchmaker’s shop. The cluttered set symbolizes the idea that time cannot be controlled.
Another set designer, Paolo Fantin, has used clocks in three productions over the past year, including Offenbach’s ‘Tales of Hoffmann’ and Donizetti’s ‘Don Pasquale.’ The choice to incorporate clocks was to highlight the theme of time’s unstoppable nature. In ‘Don Pasquale,’ the set evolves from featuring a vintage grandfather clock to modern designer clocks, symbolizing a clash between the old and the new.
In a production of ‘Der Rosenkavalier,’ Mr. Fantin and the director took the concept of stopping clocks further. The princess, who wants to halt the passage of time, orders all the clocks in her home to be stopped. In this interpretation, she removes all the clock hands, emphasizing her desire to escape the inevitability of time.
These productions demonstrate the creative use of clocks as set designs in opera, enriching the storytelling and exploring the themes of time, desire, and mortality.”
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