The Flying Dutchman

The director asked for an abstract production — waves, the ship’s sails and ropes, the portrait of Senta — in cold, steely light, with no attempt at naturalism. With set designer Craig Alfredson the design works in depth: layers of image on separate surfaces, with industrial, turn-of-the-century textures, drawing on the paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky and William Turner, the textured abstraction of Raymond Hains, photocopy collage and hand-drawn illustration based on woodblock prints.

In a large civic theatre the usual answer is the largest projector there is, from the front, or two or three of them. Across the Queen Elizabeth Theatre’s 70-foot proscenium that would have stretched both resolution and brightness. Instead the design uses smaller projectors, 13,000 to 16,000 lumens, each covering less: one for the downstage scrim, one for each of the main sails, one for the back wall behind them. The surfaces are independent, so the composition changes with the seat it is seen from.

A team of five produced the projections with the designer, which is still uncommon in Vancouver. Design work began in earnest in December 2022.