fig-2 | 50 projects in 50 weeks

At fig-2, Lynne Marsh previewed Tragedy, 2015, a film installation that tracks the processes at work behind the performance of an opera. Mimicking the framing device of a play within a play, the work focuses on the activities happening behind the scenes during two performances of La traviata at the Grand Theatre and Opera House in Leeds, UK. The film exposes the way in which the backstage area is organised, through close-ups and hand-held camera views that capture the movement, work and conversations of the stage managers, backstage crew and offstage performers. The individuals seen on screen develop as characters in an alternative performative event during the three acts of the live performance. Thus the deputy stage manager and prompter—who reads the sheet music and controls every aspect of the performance by calling the cues for all technical actions, transitions and actor moves—becomes the guiding figure and ultimate main character of this piece, a counterpart to Violetta Valéry, the protagonist of La traviata. Marsh draws direct parallels between the urgency and tension of the live performance onstage and the choreography played out offstage, where discrete conversations between characters behind the scenes marry up with the dialogue taking place in the libretto. With a focus on the routine labour that takes place around the stage, the film becomes an enquiry into the nature of performance and brings operatic tradition into context with present-day realities.