Curtain, Gong, Steam. Gundula Kreuzer

In other words, Prölß pointed out that any attempt at veiling stage machineries was itself an act of technology—and inevitably prone to be recognized as such.

      At stake, then, was the issue of how best to preserve the theatrical illusion, both during individual performances and regarding the artistic nature of theater in general: directors had to decide whether the exposure of the theater’s internal mechanical workings was less disruptive than the use of a drop scene. That this question was raised at all epitomizes the changes in theatrical aesthetics since the Baroque era, when—as we recall from this book’s introduction—the open play with machines was very much part of the spectacle’s attraction. Individual drops (often in the shape of a cloud) might therefore conceal parts of the scene but never the full stage at once.⁷⁵ Given the growing emphasis, during the long nineteenth century, on a show’s seamless artistic surface, it is not surprising that drop scenes soon carried the day. By the 1840s, German theater manuals mentioned them as customary in London, Paris, Berlin, and other “reasonably important” theaters; and in 1851, for instance, Verdi explicitly demanded one in Rigoletto for the first-act transformation from a “magnificent room in the ducal palace” to the “deserted end of a street”—that is, for a change between two elaborate long sets.⁷⁶

      The novel technique was aided by the expanding material diversification of curtains themselves. Just as their movements began to be integrated into the musical flow, so drop scenes could be tailor-made to match specific productions or dramatic situations. In 1829, the Opéra mitigated the (then) unusual curtain after act 1 of Guillaume Tell by having it depict a suitable historical scene.⁷⁷ Two years later, the infamous nocturnal cemetery scene in act 3 of Robert le diable was to be prepared—that is, the transformation from mountainscape around the cloister to cloister graveyard was to be accomplished—behind a lowered drop painted with clouds to sustain the gloomy supernatural atmosphere during a short orchestral postlude: the Parisian production team cunningly dubbed this drop a “magic curtain” (rideau de magie). Its merely auxiliary purpose was emphasized in the published score: theaters that could pull off a quick, open transformation were permitted to dispense not only with the curtain but also with its accompanying music (which mostly recycled motifs from the preceding duet before petering out into lower-string rumblings befitting the ensuing necromancy).⁷⁸ Cloud pieces had been a staple of opera since its very beginnings, not least because they offered suitably celestial vehicles for dei ex machina. But expanding them into full-size stage curtains was aesthetically and pragmatically different—so much so that “cloud curtain” became a synonym for all manner of locally colored drop scenes. The Opéra’s midcentury inventory of machines and decorations listed a sizeable collection of “rideaux de nuages”; and by 1885, Pougin devoted an entire entry of his theatrical dictionary to specific procedures whereby such curtains could efficiently veil a transformation without interrupting either action or illusion.⁷⁹ In addition, gauzes, scrims, or transparencies that had long been used in popular shows were also deployed to veil the stage to various degrees; Meyerbeer himself, for instance, mentioned black gauzes for the end of Robert’s act 3.⁸⁰ (The diaphanous curtains mocked in Böhm’s Ring parody, then, had roots in reality.)

      Towards midcentury, in short, not only the use and timing of curtains but also their fabrics, shapes, and optics multiplied. This profusion afforded ever more opportunities for composers to employ curtains as customized dramatic devices rather than cut-and-dried routine. What is more, drop scenes that were visually fitted to the preceding or emerging stage representation functioned both as curtains and as scenery—which is to say that they were simultaneously stage technology and pictorial medium. Accordingly, the resulting transformations could appear to be at once open and covered. Chameleon-like, the curtain adapted to its dramatic surroundings to strive for invisibility: as drop scene, it began to veil itself.

      ACT CLOSINGS