John Rayment: Interview With OA Il Trovatore Lighting Director

John Rayment is an acclaimed lighting director, who has created notable productions with Opera Australia. He is currently directing the digital production of Il Trovatore at Sydney Opera House, which will run from 15^th – 30^th July 2022. Ahead of this exciting interpretation, we talk to John about his illustrious career and what to expect from the new production.

Il Trovatore at Sydney Opera House

This burning tale of gypsies, witchcraft, murder and recompense demands four of the world’s most powerful voices.

Blinded by rage as her mother burns at the stake, Azucena throws the executioner’s child into the flames. But in the darkness, she has made a fatal mistake, and it is her own child that burns. She seizes the executioner’s child and raises him as her own: a family secret that will haunt the next generation until their deaths.

Verdi had a taste for high drama, and Il Trovatore has all the hallmarks of a great story, enhanced by monumental digital stagecraft: a love triangle, an intergenerational quest for revenge, and a woman willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the man she loves.

But the real attraction lies in the sensational music: from the famous Anvil Chorus to the series of stunning arias penned for the four leads. It is some of Verdi’s finest music, and demands the finest of voices. Hear the incomparable Leah Crocetto as Leonora, Elena Gabouri as the haunted Azucena, audience favourite Yonghoon Lee as the title character Manrico and Maxim Aniskin as Count di Luna.

John Rayment

John Rayment’s opera work includes, for Opera Australia, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Norma, The Mikado, Aida, The Little Mermaid, The Trojans Parts 1 & 2, Orpheus in the Underworld, Lulu, La Bohème,Salome, Two Weddings One Bride, Parsifal, Metamorphosis, Anna Bolena, Whitely, Ghost Sonata as well as Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour’s La Traviata (2012), Carmen (2013, 2017), and West Side Story (2019). Other work includes Don Carlos (Victorian State Opera), Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, La Bohème, Salome (State Opera of South Australia, Brisbane Festival) and Tristan und Isolde (QFM). Other projects include Walking with Dinosaurs – Arena Spectacular (Global Creatures), The Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the Sydney 2000 Olympics and Paralympics, the original design of Hong Kong’s A Symphony of Lights (2004 and the 2018 update), the 21st Summer Deaflympics, Taiwan (2009), the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 21st Commonwealth Games (Gold Coast, 2018).

Hi John, thanks for talking with us at TheatreArtLife! How are you doing, and how are the preparations going for Il Trovatore?

Doing well, thank you.

Preparations are going much as one might expect. There is a process for me that is common to many productions with Opera Australia – we do start with a number of givens. There is a (comprehensive) standard lighting rig, for example, so the core hardware specification and allocation schematic is taken care of from the outset.

The technical schedules for Opera Australia are published well in advance and do follow a pattern. This allows me to understand just how much time is available to me, in what context and to consider what I might attempt.

Preparations include the creation of a draft cue synopsis, which at this early stage is more about the mechanics of the work rather than the performance – scene breakdown, character entrances and exits, moments in the score that may demand a lighting response, that sort of thing.

I also prepare a 3D CAD model of the scenic elements and place them in the theatre model, for me to play around with, looking at possible lighting geometry options and constraints. That virtual model will, of course, be central to the pre-visualisation session(s). The lighting software allows me to accurately represent the lighting rig, the theatre and the scenery in a full 3D environment and will visualise the light itself (the stuff that comes out of the lanterns) with a high degree of sophistication.

I understand this is a very interesting production as it is the premiere of renowned director Davide Livermore’s new digital production. What are the challenges of lighting a digital opera compared to a traditional production? How would you describe this to our audience who may not be familiar with large-scale lighting?

The most immediate challenge is the fact of the large LED screens that OA deploys – there are ten screens (2.5M x 7M), each capable of tracking, rotating and flying. There is a dynamically altering environment throughout the production, so the physical space maintains an on-going and direct influence on the lighting (sometimes to the point where we have to lift lighting bars out of the way to allow for the screens themselves to fly).

Add to this, the fact that these screens are themselves giant light boxes. They are capable of very bright emission which can be in direct competition with the lighting rig. In practice, they are set to run below 10% of their intensity most of the time, which gives you an idea of their power.

The digital imagery – the content – obviously has a bearing on those intensity settings for the screens, at any given time. It is the content that also provides another major challenge for the lighting: should the content change significantly, say in colour, or pattern, then that will directly impact the perception of the lighting. I will sometimes have to change the lighting to make it appear that the lighting hasn’t changed!

A traditional production will, simply put, involve a series of static built sets and cloths. The lighting designer’s job is to present, in a coherent way, both the performers (in their costumes) and the stage settings. But the digital staging involves a world where I am specifically not lighting the set (the screens) and where those screens make their own contribution to the overall lit space.

Opera Australia’s standard lighting rig is quite comprehensive, and almost exclusively made up of programmable moving heads (of which there are over 120). This enables me to constantly respond to an evolving stage environment. This is, of course, a basic factor in any stage lighting design but here I have a great many lanterns that can be re-tasked, as required, throughout the performance.

A large-scale, sophisticated lighting hardware specification, whilst providing many options and capabilities, also presents complex programming demands.

The time-restricted nature of OA’s technical schedules will often mean that I am literally creating the design over the top of the stage rehearsals (and all credit to the professionalism of the OA lighting staff). Any single lantern may have up to 40 different attributes that might have to be addressed in any single lighting state (e.g. pan, tilt, colour, focus, beam size, gobo, speed-of-change, shutters, etc.), so that can very quickly become quite daunting.

And all this technical work is in service of the Art: the Lighting.

Following on from that, are there differences when designing the lighting for a new opera versus a revival production? Are there traditions that you break or keep depending on which production you are creating?

Obviously, when dealing with a revival, there is an existing frame of reference. The nature of OA’s repertory opera model, means that productions may stay in active consideration for many years. The original production and the intent of its creative team (director, designers and so on) must be honoured. Now, over time, the cultural and technical environment in which the production is staged will inevitably evolve. There is a constant discussion around whether or not a production is a discrete snapshot of the times in which it was created or might it be refreshed for its current audience, shall we say.

Works that endure do so because the core material transcends the times of their creation, and maintain an artistic stature down the years that sets them apart. Opera is not written for the concert platform – it is very specifically composed to the compass of a fully staged dramatic presentation. Thus it is also subject to the cultural times of its performance.

Coming back to lighting, a production that is twenty years old, say, will be staged in a very different technical circumstance than when it was created. The central guide must be to make a judgement call as to the intent of the original design. What might the designer have done, if the equipment of today was available to them? And what does the contemporary audience expect?

New productions, be they entirely new compositions or revisited classics, obviously provide a greater freedom of design.

As to traditions to be broken, or otherwise, any good designer will appreciate the context in which they are working. Whilst there are aesthetic considerations in the opera world that largely hold across all manner of staging approaches, it is also true that opera can provide extraordinary license.

Opera concerns itself with the emotional journey of its characters, and explores that musically. Lighting is a choreographed design, and as such, its central response is to the composed work. All the designed visual elements are there to take the score and move it beyond simply an aural experience, to enhance the performance – as the composer intended.

You’ve had an incredibly wide-ranging career across genres, and spanning the world. I’m interesting in what the evolution of your stagecraft has been over the years?

Stagecraft may be defined as an understanding of the context in which you are operating. None of us work in isolation – there are so many overlaps everywhere. I would say that I have an instinct for the whole package – in the early days that probably manifested itself as simply a delight in being in a theatre at all. The results of my craft arrive via an appreciation of all the other disciplines and forces at play around me and how they may, or may not, affect me. And, importantly, how what I do, may, or may not, affect them.

My technical stagecraft has necessarily had to keep pace with technological developments. Starting with manual lighting boards and conventional lanterns to complex consoles, multi-function lanterns and LED light engines, with programmable colour temperature. It is a simple core requirement, in a hardware-dependent discipline, to be informed about the gear.

My artistic stagecraft has evolved to take in a bigger picture, I suppose. The ability to place a production or project in a broader context than just the show itself. That, in turn, can inform your priorities regarding the final designed lighting. Whilst always bringing the best of professional practice to any project, within that there should be questions about where best to focus energy, finite time and defined resources to achieve a result.

Some projects might carry the expectations of a city or a nation; some, the hopes of a nascent theatre company; others might speak loudly to a left-of-field vision of an artform; and televised live events will have many (many!) competing demands. It’s not that you go around always speaking of such things, but rather honing your skills, and awareness, to better serve the production.

Is it possible to choose from your favourite moments or career highlights?

Ah. Well, those shows where the people made for a happy experience. We are a labour intensive industry. Nothing is more grinding than working with people who don’t care, or won’t. Or who are simply selfish.

Favourite moments would include: Sydney 2000 Olympics ceremonies, obviously; creating Hong Kong’s Symphony of Lights; The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (an utter celebration of theatre!); Sydney Dance Company first ever season in New York, at City Center; the very first performance of Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour (La Traviata); the final 120-second lighting cue in a concert presentation of Tristan & Isolde – it arrived so subtly, so unexpectedly and so beautifully: it simply worked perfectly (a very rare treat).

You’re a regular with Opera Australia, and have worked across the Sydney Opera House, Arts Centre Melbourne, and for the Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour productions. What do you love about the work that you do, and being part of the OA team?

Opera Australia strives to celebrate the form at the highest standard. There is something wonderfully special about working with creative minds, engaged personalities and sometimes, um, eccentric circumstances – all of us setting out to deliver the extraordinary.

“Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong…” to quote Terry Pratchett, of Discworld fame.

Il Trovatore runs from 15^th – 30^th July 2022 at Sydney Opera House. Tickets are available from the Opera Australia Box Office.

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