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Verdi's Aida at the Royal Opera House a new production designed and lit by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. Photograph Clive Barda. Goodchild for what must be a fraction of the cost of any opera seen at the Garden . Yet his sets and costumes for H. M. S. Pinafore had enormous style and glamour, as well as great wit and intelligence. Both the Pinafore ' s quarter deck, which served for most of the action, and the glorious final tableau of Trafalgar Square brimmed with inventiveness and highly skilled practicality, and his costumes were gloriously drawn. As both The Mikado and The Gondoliers, likewise designed by Goodchild, were on a similar level of style and invention it can be seen just what an asset he is, not only to NSWO but also to stage design in general. That this is so could be appreciated by visiting an exhibition of his work at Merrifield Studios in Hampstead where Goodchild's designs for Gilbert and Sullivan, the Regent's Park open-air Midsummer Night's Dream, a Danish production of La Traviata, an Egyptian one of Antony and Cleopatra, Rice and Oliver's Blonde!, My Fair Indy at the Adelphi, and even The Two Ronnies at the London Palladium could all be thorougly enjoyed . Another recent source of enjoyment, as always, was the visit of Dance Theatre of Harlem to the London Coliseum. Their trademarks are enthusiasm and exuberance and so it is with their design : Geoffrey Holder's work for Firebird, transferred from Russian forest to tropical jungle with a glorious Douanier Rousseau backcloth and brilliantly coloured costumes, and for Banda with its immensely powerful atmosphere of Caribbean and Latin American Voodoo were cases in point. Not subtlety but colour and drama dominate, admirably complementing DTH's own dance style. ,----------1 Costume design ideas by Pet Ha/men for Aida. Photograph Donald Southern. New Sadler 's Wells Opera 's latest Gilbert & Sullivan production HMS Pinafore. Set & costume designs by Tim Goodchild. Photograph : Fritz Curzon. 20 I I This lavishly printed booklet produced to coincide with the Theatre Design Exhibition presents a wide selection and a permanent record of British designers' work over the past four years. It contains more than 100 art reproductions of models of set designs, photographs of sets in performance and costumes, several in full colour . A limited number of copies are still available at £4 including postage and packing from CUE, Kitemore House, Faringdon, Oxon. SN7 8HR. L -------------- I I I I I I I I I I I I I _J