Architects have long commuted between their own discipline and that of designing film and stage-sets. Le Corbusier is probably the most famous example, followed by Jacque La Grange, who worked on the sets for the film Bladerunner. "It's a wonderful counterpoint to the work of an architect, this creation of an illusion, something essentially insubstantial and non-physical," says architect Arthur Duff, who is following the path himself with Opera Theatre Company's Cosi Fan Tutte.
Duff, unusually, chose to do his architectural training in Gujarat, in India. He returned home in the late 1980s and now has a architectural practice with Greg Tisdall in Dublin.
However unusual his background, Duff is certainly not the first Irish, or Irish-trained, architect to take his design talents to the stage: others, such as Michael Scott and Ian McNicholl, have also designed sets: Scott for the Abbey and McNicholl for Covent Garden's Royal Opera House, among others.
Duff has diversified further and designed the costumes for the current production of Cosi Fan Tutte. He says that in doing so he has been drawing on his memories of the vivid and pulsating hues of India. "I've used colour like it's going out of style," he says. The fabrics he has chosen are shot-silk taffetas of green and blue, iridescent silks in orange and yellow, heavy, chenille-type corduroy in burnt ochre and desert red. There is also cloth nubbed with clots of velvet, woven thick as the rich and intricate rugs of Asia. There are turbans and embroidered shoes for his moghul-type rajah look. "It's the dizzy limit," Duff admits, with perceptible glee.
He did not, however, have to return to India to find his stuffs. They were bought at the famous Murphy Sheehy's in Dublin's Castle Market, "the great source of all textiles". The Indian city in which Duff trained, Ahmedabad, is ringed with textile mills. "It's the Manchester of India. It started off my fascination with fabrics. And with an awareness of light, which is a wonderful training for an architect.
"In Asia, the sun is so strong they are always trying to keep the light out whereas here, we do all we can to catch the light. When I came back to Ireland, I looked at everything in a different way."
Audiences around the country will have an opportunity to see Duff's Indian-inspired costumes for Cosi Fan Tutte from tonight, when Opera Theatre Company, our only touring opera company, begins its annual roadshow with the production. It is conducted by Brad Cohen, and produced by James Conway. The cast includes Irish singers Donal Byrne, Joe Corbett, Mary Clarke, Mary Nelson and Philip O'Reilly, and the English mezzo, Deborah Hawksley.
Cosi Fan Tutte opens at Gal- way's Town Hall Theatre tonight, and is in Sligo on February 3rd, Derry on 5th, Dundalk on 7th, Dublin on 11th and 12th, Athlone on 14th, Limerick on 17th, Tralee on 19th, and Cork on 21st