Interview from issue 7/8 2020 A&B
Boris Kudlička in the field of opera set design has achieved unquestionable international success. Looking for new challenges and variety in his work, he has been involved in designing unconventional interiors and architecture for more than a decade. In conversation with Alicja Gzowska, he talks about, among other things, the magic of theater, the lessons of the "machine that helps tell stories" and ways to build context.
Alicja Gzowska: Your stage design projects have brought you international fame. What is your understanding of this field based on?
Boris Kudlička: Set design has always been part of the story for me. Not a background, but part of the drama - and I always think of it as a contemporary form. Opera is often associated with tradition, with a very conservative space, but for me it is very contemporary. By being a combination of text and music, in which many characters, colors are written, it gives me more freedom of interpretation. Scenography is a very broad concept of working with space: related to architecture, light, video - that is, elements that I often use as a kind of light, related to technology, sculpture, graphics. Scenography is very multidisciplinary, it's a machine, a spatial sculpture that helps us tell stories.
Visualizations from the exhibition project of the Polish History Museum
© Boris Kudlička with partners
Alicia: An important part of this machine is complex technology.
Boris: Yes, technology is a fascinating part of the magic of theater for me, but as a tool for building ways of looking, editing, lifting and turning things and people on stage, controlling movements. When preparing a project a year in advance, we need to know very precisely where people will be positioned, at what pace it should move, what types of rotations there will be, in order to create technical documentation. Such a set design helps us communicate with the audience in an attractive way. For example, I often use different types of rotations: something closes, leaves or joins, at other times something rises - this allows us to set up certain situations efficiently. Shifts can, for example, frame certain sections, while on a curtained section elements are changed, which the viewer will immediately see as a jump to a completely new space. When building sets, I don't use "proven solutions". - each one is a prototype for me.
Alicia: These are actually close to film solutions. Isn't such an approximation of the two genres risky?
Boris: Everything serves something. If we refer to quotes or film language, a cinematic situation, it's in order to bring our way of storytelling closer to the viewer through pop-cultural associations. The language of opera will always be different from the language of cinema, even if we use cinematic editing. Theater is much more conventional and uses a language of much greater abbreviation than cinema, which is what makes it seem very interesting to me. It requires very intense involvement from the viewer: that he knows the story, goes through our interpretation and comes out of it with something new. We always strive with the director to tell old stories in an original or authorial way - whether it is Shakespeare or an ancient play, we look for a way to tell the fate of the characters through modern analogies. That's why virtually all the productions I do are firmly rooted in the contemporary world. Most often I refer to recent history, using the language of, for example, the 1920s or the 1960s, not because I like those decades, it all has to be set very precisely in the whole construction of the show, as memory returns or references in the character's history, or certain political events that may have projected the story.
Sense Studio pilates studio in Warsaw
Photo: Sebastian Rzepka
Alicja: One example is the recent setting of the action of "Halka" in the Kasprowy Hotel in Zakopane in the 1970s. How do you move from such concrete realities to abstractions? How do you build codes of understanding with the viewer?
Boris: To make the abstraction interesting, you have to get to it from the concrete. And this is the whole process. We set "Halka" in a hotel situation, which, in my opinion, tells the complex social structure very well and positions the characters very well, and allows you to emphasize or hide the conflict. The transition from this realistic space to a more abstract one is made using the language of metaphor. The concrete place ceases to be important when we begin to tell the story through the perspective of the characters. Then the language of videoprojection, light, becomes part of the protagonist's internal projection. We then use abstract planes, for example, in order to better define a mental state or situation. And in general expand the field of perception of a given art. This can be the effect of water reflections on the ceiling: it is not clear whether we are still above or already below its level. A lot of associations are born, interesting metaphors that help to tell the story in a more personal way.
Alicia: Does it work? Does the audience read the metaphors?
Boris: I don't like it when everything can be interpreted in only one way. The space and the story we build resonates inside the audience, touches them and allows them to explore certain areas. This is experience - the basic idea of theater. It's true that there are performances that are worth watching two or three times to catch all the flavors and all the elements. Polish theater audiences are very sophisticated, and it seems to me that there is a very subtle conversation between the audience and the stage. At a high level. That's why what we do with different directors is rather clear - after all, we still get different invitations! The challenge is to work in different cultural circles. For example, we produced Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" in Germany, Poland, the United States and China. Each location had a different cultural experience, and we had to tell the story in a language that everyone would be able to read, because without that our work is completely pointless, we are not doing it for ourselves, we are doing it for the viewer.
Royal Raffles suite at the Raffles Europejski Warsaw hotel
Photo: Piotr Gęsicki
Alicia: You have already achieved almost everything in opera. What is still left to take?
Boris: I've had the pleasure, or luck, that thanks to a number of events I've been able to reach a ceiling quite quickly that I never thought about. I will frankly admit that I never dreamed of working for the Metropolitan Opera, for Covent Garden in London or other prestigious stages. This may be due to a combination of several important elements on my career path - diligence, talent, luck, meeting interesting people, being in an interesting place. All these things make the chances better. And a wide horizon, because without this it couldn't happen. I have never set such goals for myself, each realization gives me great pleasure. It seems natural to me that since I achieved something here, I needed to explore another area, which architecture became for me. So I fulfilled myself scenographically, and here I am learning, looking, working - experiencing something that gives me again that certain level of adrenaline, curiosity and meaning. And since it's impossible to be so intense in everything, today the architecture space rules in my professional work, and like thirty percent is theater.
Alicia: In the face of a pandemic, I guess such diversification turned out to be a good tactic?
Boris: I didn't think about that at all. Similarly, I never thought about the profession of stage designer from a profit-making angle. I think that people who choose a direction related to the arts don't think first of all about money - no one knows if they will succeed. This is not the profession of a lawyer or economist, which guarantee relative financial success. Theater is a passion, free time, hobby - it all comes together. In my case, it so happened that you can make a very decent living from it. Pandemic turned out to be a long-awaited opportunity for me to take a break from the theater. Because when a person falls into this "world league," he makes commitments for three, four, five years ahead, working simultaneously on many projects, with many directors and in many countries. This requires a very high level of commitment, constant travel, deadlines and great responsibility. Added to this is the pressure to have a WOW effect every time - a new, special event. I've been working in the theater for twenty-five years, and I needed a break to get some distance, to relax, to focus on something else. So that I could then return to theater and opera in such a way that they would be as interesting to me as they were twenty-five years ago. At the moment I have a lot of projects worked out, which are in workshops, at various stages of production. I work on one project for about a year and a half, so these wonderful three months are almost nothing.
Epoka restaurant in Warsaw
photo: Sebastian Rzepka
Interior of the Belvedere restaurant in Warsaw
photo: Rafał Kłos
Alicja: You also design exhibitions. In this case, too, both storytelling and building a certain experience are important.
Boris: Exhibition design happens rather occasionally in our studio - we have worked on small, traveling exhibitions up to the really big one that is yet to open at the Museum of Polish History, which we are preparing together with the WWAA studio. When we started working with WWAA, we tried not to use the word "scenography," only "space" or "design." But even those most ardent architects went into "scenography" mode, because it is a certain illusion. Today the term "immersive space" is used. It seems to me that an exhibition can be a space that has its own drama. She leads us - whether linearly or through various stops. Through its visual layer, it helps us add to a certain thesis, event or information. Just as in theater or opera there is a director, so with an exhibition we have a curator, who prepares a certain substantive base - the content. In it, the construction of the story is often already encoded, and my role is to read it, catch some interesting things and find a visual equivalent that will make the whole thing even more interesting. This is how I worked at the National Museum in Warsaw with Joanna Kilian. At this institution, we are now preparing the "Dante" exhibition. There will be "The Divine Comedy" and a great collection of Italian Renaissance art. I rarely undertake such projects, I choose subjects that give me pleasure, are interesting, I can learn something. Today's exhibitions are very complicated in their structure, and the requirements of museums are very high. Not only do you have to show the exhibits in the right conditions - today the viewer expects an interesting way of narration and visual freshness. With me, every such project is a prototype and is a learning process that we go through together.
