These Special Effects bring the Zurich Opera house to the delight

a murmur went through the crowd, as recently in the case of the "Belshazzar"-the Premiere of a huge Puma came onto the stage: six meters long, fluffy, movable, almost like a real. And Andrew Gatzka, also in the hall was sitting, and was glad, because the Puma is created in his Studio. For months, he and other theater-a sculptor models have built on the Mechanics around tinkering and the ideal fur selected; at the end four people have created eight weeks of the stage version: "Because it is already beautiful, when you feel a reaction."

Now, the Puma is only available as a template in Styrofoam and normal size in the Atelier, and the wooden box with the wire rope hoists, has developed the tail movements, now serves as a bracket holder. Because after the Premiere before the Premiere, the next special production runs just under the work tables around: A Hand is it this time, only slightly bigger than a real one, so tiny in comparison to the Puma. In terms of effort, after all, about half the weight.

Andrew Gatzka has developed the current Hand. Photo: Andrea payer

On the next Saturday, they will be used, at the Premiere of the family Opera "Coraline". The modeled veins, and the painted old age spots you will not see from the distance well, "but the effect is yet another, as if the Hand would just be smooth".

No doubt, as a perfectionist, one who runs his profession as a Hobby is talking about. Here, Andrew Gatzka, who in 1963 born in Bern and grew up in Zurich's Egg, once else started. He was a pattern maker in the engineering industry, therefore, has built-in templates for turbines and the like. But the industry kriselte, and his father, then a painting Studio Manager at the Opera house, has given him a Überbrückungsjob as a stage worker.

The Zoo grows

Three years later, Gatzka joined the Atelier, completed part-time studies as a theatre, a sculptor, was promoted in 1991 to the Studio Manager – and then went all serious Concerns, as of 2012, Andreas Homoki took over the management of the Opera house. Because while Alexander Pereira committed often Italian stage designer with a penchant for lush decorations, were now, suddenly, plain plastered walls asked.

The Theatre sculptors, the work threatened to go out. And maybe the Studio would exist today only in a shrink version, if Gatzka and his colleagues had not started with the special objects. Since about the chickens in "the magic flute", the ruckelten with the head as their real colleagues. Or the crows, which behaved in Verdi's "Macbeth" on two chairs, as if they were flying just now.

These mobile animals, one of which is now also the Puma, are the showpieces of a collection that grows gradually to the Zoo. A crocodile and mouse masks, horse heads, and slit the pig one has a bird skull and a Zykade with the baby's head came out in the last few years on the Opera house stage – and even if they just stood still, told her of the naturalistic look of some of the care with which we are working here with materials and proportions.

the movement to increase the care for the meticulous research. For the chicken, about the theatre, a sculptor of the skeletons analyzed, the crows, you could see also in the break on the roof terrace, and thanks to Dokfilmen you have found soon that a Puma is moving its tail, unlike the cat home.

in the ongoing Hand Gatzka has invested a lot of time in the Mechanics: "Everybody's hands and white can, what are you doing and what is not." There's a small error in the motion is sufficient, and the effect is gone. The movement is against, it is so amazing that it doesn't matter if the joints are open: "you would have been able to cover it with elastic fabric," says Gatzka, "but the time is not enough now, really." Rather a little bit in the programming file, "maybe I'll be the movements of the fingers still a little bit of liquid".

Already in the 17th century. Century contributed stage machines a lot to the success of the then young Opera.

With all the Detail obsession: The premiere date set limits, the Budget is finally – where Gatzka stressed that all of these objects are just by the effort forth luxurious, "we mostly use cheap materials". Because it is not a L'art pour l'art, but to the theatre, to illusions, to stage effects. And it is – despite the use of computers and, more recently, 3-D-printers – to the continuation of an ancient Tradition: after all, all kinds of stage machinery, and bear costumes contributed in the Baroque times of the beginning of the Opera that the audience found this new art form so great.

A running Hand, there was, at the time, not that you will see on Saturday for the first time. And you are allowed to the prognosis: It is a murmur go through the room.

Created: 14.11.2019, 17:09 PM