A creative house in Dijon

It was in 2009, in collaboration with the Opéra de Trèves, that the Opéra de Dijon produced its first show: Lucia di Lammermoor, by Donizetti. The adventure has continued ever since ...

The set and costume workshops of the Opéra de Dijon are essential resources for this creative house. The set workshop has the task of bringing to life a product imagined by the stage designer, in collaboration with the opera's director.

It all starts with a scale model that the workshop teams need to translate into a plan, so that they can study the technical feasibility. These plans are then sent to the stage builders, who then start producing the set.

After having relocated and assembled the sets on the stage, rehearsals can begin.

It takes around 10 people per project, as well as a manager for each domain. The opera is about craftsmanship, too!

Here, the metalwork department takes care of the metal and aluminum structures.

The joinery department handles all of the wooden structures. They need to meet the requirements for the staging, while also being solid enough to be dismantled, transported and reassembled!

The decoration team handles painting, patina, and sculpting. The challenge is finding the right patina and the right materials that can be incorporated into the various lighting set-ups of the stage.

The costume designers also follow the requests of the director and the show's dramatic structure, by adapting the necessary parts of the costumes. Depending on the production, there can be 10 to 12 people working in the costume workshops, alongside the manager.

Just like in the set workshops, there are specific sectors: corsetry, coupe floue (haute couture women's hairstyling), patina (work on textiles for piecing together different materials, a color, an aging effect, etc.), millinery, men's tailoring, or the period hairstyles.

Before fitting, the costume designers use mannequin busts to put together the costumes. Thanks to measurement sessions and fittings with each performer, they then adapt the costume so that the performer is perfectly comfortable on the stage.

Each technical detail must be taken into account: quick costume changes between scenes, the way materials fall, the heat reactions of each fabric, care and upkeep conditions ...

In total, over 50 shows have been produced or co-produced by the Opéra de Dijon and its workshops.

Creation and production by the Opéra de Dijon, 2012

Production by the Opéra de Dijon, 2018

Production by the Opéra de Dijon, 2018

Coproduction by the Opéra de Dijon and the Opéra de Lille, 2018

Production by the Opéra de Dijon, 2018

Co-production by the Opéra de Dijon, the Opéra de Lille, the Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg and the Théâtre de Caen, 2018

Co-production by the Opéra de Dijon and the Opéra Royal / Château de Versailles Spectacles, 2019

Co-production by the Opéra de Dijon and the Opéra National de Lorraine, 2020

Creation and production by the Opéra de Dijon, 2020

Production by the Opéra de Dijon, 2021