# Hard-to-stage scenes - what are the best/most creative solutions you have seen?



## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

We all know Those Scenes that are really hard to do on stage, like a lot of things in the Ring (the giants, Alberich's transformations, the Rhine flooding the stage, Valkyries actually riding, Fafner boss fight) or the finale of Rienzi, and "special effects" in general. 

So, share some good/funny solutions you've seen or ideas how you would stage them!


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

I'd stage the end of _Gotterdammerung _underwater. In a gigantic specially constructed aquarium. The whole audience would wear diving suits with oxygen tanks. Floodgates would open, and thousands of litres of water would come smashing through. At the same time, the theatre would go up in flames ... as Wagner wanted. It'd be cataclysmic!

Actually, it'd be even more impressive if the audience weren't given diving suits at all - or any warning the theatre would simultaneously flood and explode.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Dr. Shatterhand said:


> I'd stage the end of _Gotterdammerung _underwater. In a gigantic specially constructed aquarium. The whole audience would wear diving suits with oxygen tanks. Floodgates would open, and thousands of litres of water would come smashing through. At the same time, the theatre would go up in flames ... as Wagner wanted. It'd be cataclysmic!
> 
> Actually, it'd be even more impressive if the audience weren't given diving suits at all - or any warning the theatre would simultaneously flood and explode.


Only if the audience were specially invited (all those who say they couldn't stand a run of the mill updated production when the singing was complete and utter rubbish!)

How very 'punishment fits the crime'.

N.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

A friend of mine, who was an opera producer, had a book (or books, there may have been more than one volume) which detailed the kind of practical problems one might come across when producing various operas, and advice on how to get round them.

In the chapter on *Die Frau ohne Schatten* it mentioned the problem for the lighting designer of ensuring the Empress never cast a shadow whilst everyone else did. The simple advice was "Don't do it."

I remember a review of one production, which stated that the Empress clearly cast a shadow throughout, until the final scene, when it miraculously it disappeared! The book evidently had a point.


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