Just as the saying that clothes make the man rings true, so do costumes trumpet insight into a character on stage even before he speaks. If the costumes are designed by Mattie Ullrich, the visual message the audience receives is quite extraordinary.
If you go
“Zaide”
Where: The Barns at Wolf Trap
When: 8 p.m. Friday and Tuesday, 3 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. June 19
Info: $32 to $72; 877-965-3872; wolftrap.org
The Wolf Trap Opera Company production of “Zaide,” Mozart’s unfinished opera, incorporates Ullrich’s inventiveness and that of director James Marvel in the melodramatic story of a woman and a slave who fall in love while they are held hostage. Mozart wrote “Zaide” as a Singspiel, or singing play, with spoken dialogue. For unknown reasons, he lost interest after completing the arias and ensemble pieces for the first two acts. If he composed an overture and third act, they were never located after his death. This leaves an unresolved ending to be determined by the Wolf Trap audiences during intermission. Will it be happy or tragic? Nobody will know until the votes are tallied.
This is Ullrich’s fourth collaboration with Wolf Trap Opera. The costumes she designed for “Alcina” and “Ariadne auf Naxos” in 2008 and “Cosi fan tutte” last season were sumptuous and colorful. In contrast, her creations for “Zaide” reflect the bleak, dangerous and futuristic world in which the characters exist while awaiting their unknown fate.
“In the beginning, the story opened up a Pandora’s box about setting it in the future,” she said. “I didn’t want to make fun of the characters with too much sci-fi content, but the story must be served. James [Marvel] keeps a visual index, so he sent me 15 images and I responded with 20 more. We kept exchanging images until we had filtered down the setting to an ambiguous, timeless one.
“Because many of the characters are cold and distant, I brought the outside in to show the vastness of an unfruitful Earth. By using ash and other colorless shades, I tried to give the characters room to grow and change in the future and make the audience ask questions. For instance, one of the characters dressed all in white is not a slave even though his costume is wrapped tightly about him like a bandage.”
Ullrich may spend anywhere from one to five years designing costumes for an assigned opera or stage production in this country or abroad. But because Wolf Trap Opera Company’s summer productions are not announced more than six months in advance, she had only four months in which to sketch, receive approval and arrange for construction of the costumes.
They were then made by the creative costumers in the shop right on the Wolf Trap site. Some garments, such as hats and other accessories, are made by reliable craft shops in Washington. At the close of each production, the costumes are delivered to the University of Maryland Department of Theatre costume shop, where they are stored until borrowed or rented by various organizations.
Ullrich’s creations can next be seen in the first staged production of Franz Schreker’s 1910 opera “Der Ferne Klang” (“The Distant Sound”), at the Bard College Summerscape from July 30 to Aug. 6. Meanwhile, she is eager to discover how the “Zaide” audiences determine the opera’s ending all four evenings.
“They cast their votes at intermission, and I suspect that the choice they would have made before the opera begins will be different by the time intermission arrives,” she said.
