Suzanne’s Blog for 12/19/2022

Blog – Into the Bowels of the Theater

I remember doing the Ballet, “War and Peace” by Valery Panov, they needed a lot of period clothing, including fur coats and hats, mufflers, gloves, etc.

We were instructed to go to an area of the theater I had never personally been to before that moment.

Theaters are like a maze and perhaps the only good thing that came out of the terrible destruction of cities during the World Wars was that they had to start from scratch to rebuild theaters.

That allowed them to dig deep holes and put many levels below the street level and bring in modern innovations such as hydraulics for moving entire sets from the stage level to the two lower levels, or bring sets from behind the stage, or even to move sets to the sides of the stage on either side of the wings.
So, while the audiences walked in and would go sit at stage level from the street or go higher up to balcony’s. Most do not realize that below the stage there are three to 5 levels. Two of the levels often just store the large sets, equipment, stage furniture, lights, etc.
But below that there is a warehouse of all the costumes. Nothing is thrown away because often costumes can be retooled and reused for other performances, and costumes are very expensive to make.
Besides ballets and operas will come back around every few years, especially the popular ones such as Aida, Merry Widow, Swan Lake, Coppélia, and Giselle. And those costumes will be needed again.

In this case, with “War and Peace”, it was a new ballet based in Russia and we needed lots of fur coats for the outdoor scenes.
In the production … we even had real Russian Wolfhounds on the stage.

The German Theaters are subsidized by the government and have more money to work with than in most American Theaters.

One day, we went down into the bowels of the theater … to a corner that I had never previously been.
Such places have a spooky quality as you walk through. Endless rows of old costumes seem to be alive as they patiently wait for another time and place to live again.

We got to the area of Fur coats. They were all covered in large cloth bags to protect them from the elements, dampness, etc. I remember seeing endless rows of them, with matching hats, gloves, muffs, etc.

It was like being in a warehouse for the wealthy.

The costume designer was there and had sorted what he wanted and the look he was going for in certain scene of the ballet.
It was now about trying them on and seeing if the overall effect was what he was going for.

Our costumes that were going to be under those coats were there for us to put on before the coat because sometimes a costume’s thickness of the skirt or bodice would make a coat too small.
Or in the case of the use of most of these coats, made originally for the opera singers, they could just be much too large in general.

It was wonderfully exciting and chilling as this area of the theater was designed to be cold to prevent moths from wanting to feast on all the fabrics.

As a dancer, we all were not shy or body conscious. We spend our lives dealing with costume designers, fittings, and people poking and pulling on fabrics while they are on our bodies.

It was nice to finally go from naked to fully covered and warm in that cold, vast space.

I remember, suddenly realizing that I was standing in a full-length silver fox coat with a matching hat, and gloves with a fur trim. Wow!

The outfit I had on was worth a lot of money and I realized that this moment I was wearing clothes that probably cost more than half my yearly salary.

Such moments … I would try to take completely in. The richness of the fabrics, the smell of the fur, the expansive space filled to the brim with marvelous costumes, the laughter of the women, the sounds of astonishment, seeing the reflections of us in the mirrors, and feeling the magic that began to unfold that would eventually become a ballet … was something difficult to explain unless one was actually there.
Thank you for listening. I hope you found that insightful and interesting. And thank you for sharing a moment with me down memory lane.

~Suzanne Wagner~