Der Rosenkavalier

Alan Burrett - Lighting Designer

Der Rosenkavalier

Los Angeles Opera 2005/ New Israeli Opera 2006
Director: Maximilian Schell
Set and CostumeDesigner: Gottfried Helnwein

"THE ROSENKAVALIER INDEED, IS ONE OF THE COMPANY'S GREAT TRIUMPHS... a visual rewrite of a work so encrusted in a much-observed tradition that you'd think the slightest new move might upset the balance. But no, from the opening in a bedroom furnished not in period fustian but in bare walls magically drenched in Alan Burrett's saturated lighting, to the glorious overstatement of the look of the Baron himself, who seems costumed in neon, to the Marschallins final entrance, when the flush of her face seems to have drained into the unsexed blue of her gown, this is a story told in color and transformed..." LA WEEKLY - Alan Rich

"Call the look postmodern Baroque, a kind of cool Fellini-esque phantasmagoria, done as artsy chic and maximized by Alan Burretts ingenious lighting. The outer acts have a single-hue, ghostly wash, with one or several of the central characters in blazing color from head to toe as stark contrast. The second act is a peachy gold, no spectral downside. Yes, it will offend the traditionalists those who look for straightforward 18th-century effects."
Opera Magazine

Credit, above all, the theatrical imagination of director Maximilian Schell, who, with designer Gottfried Helnwein and lighting wizard Alan Burrett, has stripped the Straussian candy box of its customary oh-so-Viennese decor and, on practically bare stages, reconstructed the drama of the work through simple stage pieces and wondrously suggestive saturated lighting.

L.A Times