Ariodante

Music by George Frideric Handel. Directed by Nikolas Sean-Paul Nackley, conducted by Christine Brandes. Produced by San Francisco State University, April, 2022.

Fthe first time I got to use a video wall! Three LED panels were hung behind the stage platform (the performance venue was a large band-rehearsal room). Two 6' 6" square panels flanked a 4' 10" x 6"6" center panel, with a 3' 6" gap between center and side panels available for entrances and exits. Pixel dimensions were 512 x 512 for the side panels, 384 x 512 for the center one. Images on the screens were crisp and bright, and managed to cope with ocasionally bright ambient lighting. Individual pixels weren't discernable from the audience. Also for the first time, someone else was responsible for loading the video files into a computer and building the show. Bliss. Projection software was QLab.

The two performances took place during the trailing edge of the 2020-2022 Covid-19 pandemic, and University policy was that masks were to be worn indoors. The singers were permitted to perform unmasked, but the situation was unclear at the time the production was planned. To deal with the possibility that the singers might have to perform wearing masks, the director set the opera in a hospital, with the singers cast as doctors. A plot element concerned the U.S. opioid epidemic, involving "Pauly Sakler" [sic], aka Polinesso. See the Overture, below.