Promotion: Italian architecture firm Studio Fuksas has made its operatic debut with open-air productions of Tosca and Turandot, for which the company designed an all-white set in front of Rome's ancient Baths of Caracalla.
Doriana and Massimiliano Fuksas's stage design constituted a key venue for the 2024 Caracalla Festival and offered a unified vision for both operas, which were programmed together to honour the centenary of the death of their composer, Giacomo Puccini.
The design was intended to create a visual dialogue with the dramatic ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, one of Rome's largest ancient baths, by contrasting the ancient and the contemporary.
Studio Fuksas designed one unified set for the operas Tosca and Turandot. Photo by Roland Halbe It featured an 88-metre-long stage composed of angular white planes, like a crisply folded piece of white paper, with a layered configuration that placed performers at multiple heights.
The set was modular, with a removable central section, and enhanced with a lighting and projection design that added dynamism.
The Fuksases' key goal for the set, lighting and projection design was to amplify the emotional intensity of the operas and to bring attention to the performers.
The stage was meant to create a strong visual in combination with the ancient Baths of Caracalla. Photo by Roland Halbe
"The stage is white to give strength to the characters," said Doriana Mandrelli Fuksas.
"We didn't want to challenge the monume...