Photo: Muriel Steinke / Met Opera
When Salomé calls the head of Jochanaan, the Metropolitan Opera can really give it. In Richard Strauss's opera SalumageAn adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play telling the biblical gospel, Princess Salome falls in love with Jochanaan – probably better known to the American bibliques as John the Baptist – then demands his cut head of his lustful stepfather, King Herod. After understanding it, she holds him and kisses him. This is the highlight of history, accompanied by what was described by the scientist Gary Schmidgall as “the most disgusting agreement of the whole opera”.
Create an accessory head that is exactly like Baritone Peter Mattei, who sings the role from April 29, fell mainly in the wigs and MET makeup – a team of ten people led by Tera Willis. “Many people subcontract most of their business,” said the master of properties Jason Hamilton. “We are fortunate to have a department dedicated to the manufacture of accessories, a department of wigs and makeup, wardrobe, a costume workshop. There are not many theaters that can do it. ” However, according to Willis' words, ten people are a “exponentially small” team for the quantity of work they have to do, because the MET is a huge performance factory, with new productions, repertoire emissions and singers who come and go. The day we discuss, she thinks of SalumageThe shooting of Figaro's marriagean incoming cast for Aidaand the upcoming productions of Antony and Cleopatra And Shovel queen. In addition, in the bottom of his mind, there are the distribution changes to Madame Butterfly Next season, for which she will need a slew of new wigs. Nowadays, everything must be ready for HD, because the productions put are turned and broadcast in the cinemas on screens where each silicone poore is the size of a penny. While Willis talks about all the requirements of her department, she sometimes evokes Emily The Devil Porte Pradamurmuring the recall: “I love my work, I like my work, I like my work.”
This particular work, however, is unusual. Production comes from Russia, where she had her first race under Claus Guth, who also directs here, therefore the designers of the Met knew in which they entered – and it is a rare aesthetic for many of them, raw and a little frightening and therefore a little more exciting.
First of all, they have to launch a mold on Mattei himself, and says Willis, they start by taking measures so that Mattei is not hiding inside. “We put it in a bald cap and put petroleum jelly through the hair, eyebrows and eyelashes so that we did not accidentally have one accidentally” when the casting stands out. Then the casting begins: “This GOOP green you see is called BODY Double, and it is a safety silicone. Breaks in people's noses.
Mattei had a cold the previous week and was a little nervous at the idea of superimposing to goo, “but it was not a problem,” he said. “You sit just there and continue to put very meditatively. I think my impulse is very low. ” Plaster bandages, the type used in bone molds, pass over the glop. Mattei describes feeling as “like a really heavy helmet”. This crust maintains everything in place: “If you do not have a stable shell, it will not stay in its shape,” explains Willis. And then “you will feel the plaster start to heal”, how hot it is. “We like to say that people receive steam facial treatment there. Then he cools down, and that's when you are ready to leave. ”
Then they have to remove it from him. “We generally ask them to hold their hands in the face and start making fun faces so that the silicone begins to go out,” explains Willis. “We ended up using a molding silicone that does not stick to the hair. He takes a minute to go out, because we have ears in there, it's quite tight, so we make people move. We put our hands in it and we release it and then he finished.” Mattei, who grew up a little claustrophobic, fortunately no longer has this problem. “I had a summer job when I was 18 working in a very bad place,” he says. “We cleaned industrial tanks, and sometimes I also stayed stuck. I knew that I had a lot of claustrophobia, but there was no other way to do so. So I think I got rid of panic that summer. ”
Once the mold is finished, the makeup team pays skin silicone, building four layers – which, on this occasion, turns out to be an error. “We did not know that in the world of the show, a child must hold this head above their head for a long time,” explains Willis. “I should probably have digged a little and having discovered it. But we sent the product almost finished on stage, and it turned out that it was much heavier than the rehearsal head with which they had worked. ” They are trying to make changes there, but it was still not the weight it should be. It was at this time that Willis realizes that they needed an entirely new head. “The shit is coming and it's live,” says Willis. “We must be very, very flexible here.”
To solve the problem, Willis calls Susie Knowles, a member of her team who, she knows, has the skills necessary to launch the new lighter head, using the same mold, in a single day. This time, they only use two layers of silicone, and inside is “an expanding foam – foam urethane – it's very light”.
Then they ask the picturesque team to help paint their heads, because this team has already worked on the remaining half of Jochanaan-that is to say the model who represents his corpse. Willis says they had a little luck with painting, because the bloody nature of the mission means the fake The skin might seem a little more rough than usual. “Often, you remove a casting casting and you are pouring a positive plaster to catch air bubbles,” she said. “Then you go on this one and you chop these songs, then you take another casting. Then, it's perfect. There were a few imperfections and air bubbles here, but, because there was a textured paint treatment, I knew that it would not bother us. So, so we jumped this stage. We could save a little time and money.”
Finally, it's time to finish the key. As a rule, all the hair of a project like this is inserted in one silicone One Strand at the same time, a process that craftsmen call “punching hair”. To save time, especially on the head which had to be redone in a rush, Willis understood certain bypass solutions. “We found a wig that works,” she says. “And we found an already built beard that would normally go on a person and a mustache. In addition, we have done eyebrows. ” From there, they end up striking: “We fill up places and we will go around and do the hair before,” explains Willis. “So, instead of doing the whole thing, we get 90% with existing hair, we will finish the last 10% with film quality punch.” Looking at work, Willis seems tired but proud. “No one in their good sense would never do that,” she said. “We turned it very quickly, but it was only our education” – Willis and Knowles went to the University of the University of North Carolina – “and knowing the products”. She adds that “most of the time people call us a glamorous team, which I absolutely hate. Our skills go so far beyond making people pretty. ”
The whole photographer gracked by Muriel Steinke / Met Opera.
