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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.
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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.
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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.
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