BAM Turns Orchestra Pit Into Swimming Pool For Stravinsky

Originally a Canadian Opera production, the set allows singers to be submerged. (Photo: Michael Cooper)

"If the director is Robert Lepage, he'll flood the orchestra pit with 12,000 gallons of water and send his performers wading in waist deep. For The Nightingale and Other Short Fables, opening tomorrow at BAM, Lepage's production company has installed what looks like an above-ground swimming pool inside the Howard Gilman Opera House. The notion of performing half-submerged is nothing new -- in fact, Lepage says, it's based on the art of Vietnamese water puppetry. The Canadian director and his designer, Michael Curry (The Lion King), studied the 1,000-year-old craft while devising the staging for this tale of a Chinese emperor and his pet songbird, based on the Hans Christian Andersen story." [Source] As previously mentioned, the production will feature Simone Osborne.