Platée [Opera]

Scenic design for ‘Platée’.
Directed by Rafael Lopez-Barrantes, in the Walt Disney Modular Theater, Spring 08.


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Platée (Plataea) is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Jean-Philippe Rameau.

The plot concerns an ugly water nymph [Platée] who is tricked into believing that Jupiter, the king of the gods, is in love with her. The gods make sport of Platée’s infatuation, ultimately destroying her for their own entertainment.


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The design represents the realm of the Gods [the red kites] and the surrounding landscape [air vents, sewers and drainage areas] supporting the realm of the gods and containing a number of dead-end plateaus and winding stairways that lead back onto themselves [false promises of ascension to a heaven that’s just out of reach].