Technology, technology, everywhere

Every few decades the world of technology infects all the arts and it eventually arrives at set design for stage productions of all kinds. Not that technology and projections have been absent from stagecraft. Dance has been using projections forever. Twenty something years ago, I saw a performance of wonderful pieces by Merce Cunningham (and how sad I was when he died) and the only sets for all of them were projections on a cyclorama that seemed to have no bearing on what the dancers were doing. This was a tenet of his work--all "aspects" of performance were independent of each other. But they were often beautiful--projections and dances--and I was always engrossed. And, of course, Peter Sellars has made his name as a "genius" (he did get a grant) for his mixing of media. (Just how many works DID he stage with piled up televisions?) Certainly at least two works by Steve Reich have been accompanied by a wall of screens (which helps, if you ask me.) And the projections during the Paris production of Les Troyens in 2003 were wonderful in an effectively "sparse" staging. But starting in Beijing during the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics, technology changed and everyone seemed to have had the same ideas about how to use it. I think we are at the beginning of a Golden Age of creative design and I hope it lasts and expands and enriches. London's (and then Broadway's) production of Sondheim / Lapine's Sunday In The Park With George was one of the most creative use of projections I have ever seen. The audience gasped when everything went white and then pencil strokes slashed across the stage, as if we were seeing George's paper as he was sketching. And the MET has created another projection extravaganza in La Damnation de Faust and there were plenty of ideas to make one gasp. The moment when Faust falls into the water and slowly spins around is an unforgettable moment in an opera-ish work (Berlioz called it a "Dramatic Legend") that has previously been mostly unsuccessful when put on a stage in any way but a concert version. The MET version seems to have solved its "problems" and added a dazzling production that has a good shot at becoming a (semi) staple of the rep, like Lulu or the Janacek operas. I'm sure we are in for more. Some people have worried that this is just more distraction from the "singer" and the art of "singing". Maybe it will effect how we see and hear. No way of knowing this soon. But surely this Faust is just a new form of the older generation's massive moving parts, such as the MET's Aida and it's spectacle of giantism. When it was first introduced, critics complained the sets dwarfed the singers. Now audiences and critics have gotten to know it and appreciate it. May the "new" technology get the same chance to shine.