Sunday, July 21, 2024

The largest production ever for Opera Maine
demanded a stage design to match

‘What does epic look like?’ set designer Germán Cárdenas-Alaminos asked himself when considering how to stage Verdi’s Aida.

by Megan Gray | Staff Writer

Germán Cárdenas-Alaminos wanted to design furniture. He was enrolled at the National Autonomous University in Mexico to study architecture, and in his final year, he took an elective course on scenic design. He saw a production of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” and everything changed.

“I was like, ‘Wow, look just how they use the space. I wish I could do that,’ ” he said.

So he did. Cárdenas-Alaminos went on to get a master’s degree in scenic design from the Yale School of Drama and now teaches the subject at

Bowdoin College in Brunswick. His growing list of credits in Maine includes productions at Theater at Monmouth, such as Moliere’s adaptation of “Am- phitryon” in 2022, and Portland Stage, where he worked on “Clyde’s” this past season.

One current project is “Aida,” the iconic work written by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi and presented this month by Opera Maine. The classic of the repertory has its own lore in the world of opera; the 1871 world premiere in Cairo included a dozen elephants in the famous Triumphal March. Alas, Merrill Auditorium will not host live animals, but Cárdenas-Alaminos was still charged with turning the stage into Egypt.

“If you listen to the score, it feels bigger and epic,” Cárdenas-Alaminos, 48, said. “So if you ask yourself then, what does epic look like?”

It is the largest production ever for the nonprofit opera company with more than 200 people involved on and off stage. Dona D. Vaughn, the longtime artistic director, said singers come from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and other top venues to spend the summer at Opera Maine. So the production design needs to be as professional as those on stage.

“I want the principals coming on to sing to feels supported by their surroundings,” Vaughn said. “Not only am I singing in this fabulous role, but I’m wearing this fabulous costume, and I’m on this fabulous set in this fabulous auditorium in this fabulous town. It’s all a package.”

A VISUAL LANGUAGE

When Cárdenas-Alaminos veered from architecture to theater, he found the skills he’d developed in his training served him well. He knew how to draw plans and build models. Most importantly, he knew how to think about the space at hand. He eventually started assisting the designer from the production of “The Tempest” that had so inspired him, and she introduced him to others in the field. He got his master’s degree in 2010. Five years ago, he was working at Rider University in New Jersey when his wife, a music scholar, was hired at Bowdoin. They moved to Maine, where he started working at the college as well. Their family now lives in Brunswick.

“In architecture school, it was about trying to ind the style quickly, or some sort of visual language that you could identify with,” he said. “In scenic design, it’s something similar, but ‘Aida’ doesn’t have to look the same as ‘The Flying Dutchman’ that we did a couple years ago. There has to be a different look for each production. … That’s really what’s exciting.”

Davis Robinson, chair of the theater and dance department, described Cárdenas-Alaminos as approachable and accessible to students. He said Cárdenas-Alaminos often inspires students who don’t realize they have an interest in theater – much like his own undergraduate studies did for him. He cited the case of a recent graduate who took a class on stage craft with Cárdenas-Alaminos and proceeded to build her own design track in the department even though it isn’t an oficial minor. (Robinson hopes to make it one, someday.)

“People are studying other things when they come to Bowdoin,” Robinson said. “They aren’t thinking about theater and design and performance. He’s really helped build an interest in design in the department.”

Cárdenas-Alaminos also works on sets at the college, such as a student production of 17th-century Spanish playwright Ana Caro’s “Valor, Outrage and Woman” this past spring. Even if he doesn’t do the actual design, Robinson said the shows still benefit from the fact that many students on the crew have taken his courses. He said Cárdenas-Alaminos has a creative approach to design that isn’t always the most literal or stylized – a strategy that has also influenced his work on “Aida.” “Germán likes to think of building a structure for the story to live in, but you might not necessarily be spelling out every door and window and elephant needed for the show,” he said.

‘IT’S TIME’

Cárdenas-Alaminos worked with Opera Maine for the first time on the 2022 showing of Richard Wagner’s early work “The Flying Dutchman.” That show marked a turning point for the company, which is in its 29th year.

“The question was always, are you going to do ‘Aida?’ There has never been a year that someone did not ask that question,” Vaughn said. “‘Are you going to do ‘Aida?’ When are you going to do ‘Aida?’ I used to begin by saying, ‘Not in the foreseeable future.’ Then I would say, ‘Maybe someday.’ Then it became, ‘We would love to.’ ”

“The Flying Dutchman” was then the largest show Opera Maine had ever done, and it gave Vaughn the confidence that they could tackle their figurative white whale – or, in this case, their elephant.

“When I said, I think we can do ‘Aida,’ there was stunned silence at first,” she said. “I said, ‘I think it’s time.’ ”

“Aida” is a story of politics and passion. The opera’s namesake is an Ethiopian princess who has been kidnapped and taken to Egypt. She falls in love with General Radames, who is leading a war against her native country. The opera follows the conlict between her feelings for him and her loyalty to her homeland. It will be performed in the original Italian with English subtitles projected over the stage.

Cárdenas-Alaminos starting sketching his plans in December. He has worked for months with a team of other professionals (Millie Hiibel, costume design; James Lawlor, lighting design; and Camilla Tassi, projection design). Vaughn gave them her vision, which led him to choose a color scheme of gold and aqua.

“I said I would like to have a lot of gold,” she said. “Egypt is hot. … That, to me, speaks of nothing that is beige or bland. The colors have a power to them, an intensity. It’s almost as though the colors compete with one another for attention just as the characters in the opera do.”

BIG EXPECTATIONS

Cárdenas-Alaminos researched the architecture of ancient Egypt, as well as the way art history has portrayed this place and time period. He considered the shapes of hieroglyphs and the texture of papyrus. He framed the stage with columns – a choice that he said responds to the epic scale of the music. His original design was more complex, but the inal version is simpler, less literal and supplemented by a creative use of projections. He focused less on presenting Egypt as it appears in popular culture and more on making the production feel true to a contemporary audience.

“There is a very stylized way of portraying ancient Egypt that is not accurate,” he said. “It brings good questions about representation for stage.”

One challenge was the sheer number of people involved, including eight principals and 50 chorus singers. Another 40 people have volunteered for silent roles as supernumeraries – spear carriers, soldiers, prisoners, civilians. Opera Maine has never needed so many extras for a show before, but a key moment in “Aida” is the Triumphal March, a victorious return from battle that involves dozens of people. He said the famous scene presented a logistical and creative challenge.

“It just wants to be so big,” he said. “You may have audience members that have already heard the score and the music before. They are expecting something big. So how do we get there?”

He submitted sketches at the end of February, and Opera Maine spent March searching for the shop that would build the set. Ultimately, the University of Maine at Orono got the job. Rehearsals started in early July. On a Wednesday afternoon with two weeks and one day to go before opening night, the principals worked on the movable set pieces in a downstairs room at Merrill Auditorium. The day before, Vaughn had been coaching Brian Major, the baritone who plays Amonasro, how to stage a fall on the stairs. On this day, the loor was marked with hot pink tape for blocking, and the singers’ voices could be heard from nearby rooms even with all the doors closed.

“Let’s get this a little more dramatic,” Vaughn said during a pause, and they started the scene again.

The set and cast moved to the stage for final rehearsals a week before the first performance. Cárdenas-Alaminos said finishing touches to the set should be minimal – maybe painting a few palm trees. (July is a busy month for him, as he was also working on the set for “Dry Land” presented by the Portland Theater Festival, which is staging productions in unconventional venues this summer. This play is at a large warehouse at Cassidy Point in Portland.) He guessed he will have seen the full opera a half-dozen times by opening night, but he still plans to be in the audience to see it all come together.

“At the end of the day, it’s not only the platform,” he said. “It’s the character singing Aida and how that supports her. That’s the ultimate goal.”

Megan Gray – (207) 791-6327
[email protected]