Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Stage Configuration


San Francisco Ballet has staged several powerful pieces by Christopher Wheeldon, but not the one above (which is described here). Most intriguing for me in this photo are the barely visible instrumentalists distributed along an elevated arc lining the back of the stage. This is exactly the arrangement William Kentridge invented for Monteverdi's Return of Ulysses. I was fortunate enough to see its revival this past March under the sponsorship of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The Kentridge exhibition at the museum closed just two days ago. I now regret that I only saw it four times.