Costumes by Simon Machabeli in Opera de Lyon production of Béla Bartók's only stage work
A scene from director Andriy Zholdak's production of 'Bluebeard's Castle', for which Simon Machabeli created costume design. Photo: Philippe Chancel/via Opera de Lyon.
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Georgian designer Simon Machabeli is among the creative team that presented Bluebeard's Castle, the only opera of the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, at Opera de Lyon in France last week.
Costumes by Machabeli were part of director Andriy Zholdak's production, staged as part of the French venue's programme for the Free Women's Festival.
In creating the production the Georgian theatre-, performing arts- and fashion designer worked as part of the team that involved set design by Zholdak, dramaturgy by Georges Banu and musical direction by Titus Engel.
Presented to audiences of the Lyon venue on March 26, the 2,5-hour show featured baritone Karoly Szemeredy in the role of Bluebeard, while mezzo sopranos Eve-Maud Hubeaux and Victoria Karkacheva alternated as Judith.
The new production is staged at the theatre where Machabeli previously created costumes for another staging by Zholdak. Photo: stofleth/via Opera de Lyon.
Orchestra of the Lyon opera are also part of the new production, promoted by the theatre as a "piece of infinite musicality which rewrites operatic convention".
Ukrainian director Andriy Zholdak exploits the ambiguity of this Bluebeard to the full, offering us, in the same evening, two radical stagings, intense and sensual
- Opera de Lyon
Machabeli is known for his work in design of varied profile and was the costume designer for Zholdak's production of The Enchantress at Opera de Lyon in 2019.
Graduating from the State Academy of Arts in Tbilisi, he later studied at the Edinburgh College of Arts and the Central St. Martins College of Art and Design.
The creative’s work in fashion has been on display at the Tbilisi Fashion Week and Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tbilisi, while he was named among Three Georgian Fashion Designers That Create Pure Art by Georgia Starts Here.
Costumes by Georgian designer Simon Machabeli are under the spotlight of Opera National de Lyon as the French theatre premieres a new redaction of the classic The Enchantress in the country this month.
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An exposition by contemporary Georgian theatre artists, plus a generational display looking at tendencies of stage design in the country are part of the ongoing Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, known as “the largest scenography event in the world”.
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