Bursting the bubble

If you've seen Keith Warner's Wozzeck, you've seen one of the most spectacular special effects ever staged in the Royal Opera House. Whose jaw has not dropped at the sight of Simon Keenlyside immersed motionless in a tank full of water for several minutes? In front of 2,000+ people, after 90 hectic minutes on stage?

Many of you will have worked out the sneaky secret behind the stunt, but judging by my emails it seems not everyone.

So here - using only legit production photos to demonstrate - is how it's done.

I appreciate not everyone wants their illusions shattered, so IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW, STOP READING HERE.

Nosey majority, read on.

In essence the trick is a simple one. Wozzeck has an air pipe - one end goes in his mouth, the other is outside the tank. If your seat is stage left and not too far back, you can see the whole thing from the side.

In the photo below, spot the clear plastic hose running from front to back at the top left of the water tank. The closest end terminates in a snorkel mouthpiece - clear plastic again - and the one at the back runs out through a hole in the tank. You can just see the hose hanging down at the back.

It's even more obvious in the photo below. Just look directly above Simon Keenlyside's shoulder.

And again - see how the rims and reflections camouflage the apparatus?

When Simon enters the tank, he's singing and splashing around, an old magician's trick to distract the eye as he grabs the mouthpiece and slips it in. Once he's submerged, he deftly slips the hose under his right armpit so it's mostly hidden from view. Below you can see it emerging from behind his left shoulder.

A regular snorkel has a large external mouthpiece. Simon appears to use something much smaller, which slips into his mouth unobtrusively. As he doesn't use either a full mask or a nose clip, he has to be careful not to inhale the contents of the tank. I'm not quite sure what he's up to in the photo below, but he could be covering his nostrils to avoid an accident.

He managed to divert a catastrophe of some sort tonight. It was just seconds before the end when a spray of bubbles suddenly shot upwards. Simon yanked out the mouthpiece, then rolled deftly over and rose to the surface, where he rested with his face turned towards the rear and the back of his head still submerged - just like a floating corpse. Plan B successfully executed. I'm sure 99% of the audience thought it was part of the show. Just goes to prove the stunt is neither foolproof nor risk-free - and probably deserves some sort of medal.

all photos Catherine Ashmore/Royal Opera House

Comments

[Regie, or Not Regie]

Way cool! Thanks for sharing!

[PLIMPTON]

all very impressive and clever, but I find it very hard to see what this circus trick has to do with Berg's opera Wozzeck

[dave bestman]

It has a lot to do with it. Wozzeck drowns at the end of the opera. It's in the libretto.

[TheManOnTheBus (and in the Amphiteather!)]

Yes, I was there last night. Most of the audience would have no doubt thought it part of the show - when the bubbles started appearing and the dead body turned around and faced back-stage.

I remember the show from when new so was looking to see how it was done, had spotted the tube, but it is still so impressive!

[TheManOnTheBus (and in the Amphiteather!)]

The libretto calls for Wozzeck to drown. How would you do it?

[Desdemona]

Thank you for sharing, I hadn't worked it out.

[Philip Lawton]

Covent Garden had an article on this out in September. Nice to see it illustrated, though.

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/trade-secrets-find-out-more-about-staging-the-gruesome-final-act-of-bergs-wozzeck

[Philip Lawton]

"PLIMPTON" sounds like @GblAria on Twitter, who had exactly the same reaction to the Covent Garden article. This was her response "OK. He drowns. You don't need to be so literal. There are more subtle ways of suggesting it these days. Hitech" Great work, Gabrielle.

[Chiswickian]

Yup! I thought it was part of the show too. Well done Mr K.

[PLIMPTON]

I realise that Wozzeck drowns,of course, but doesn't the stunt element distract from the simple emotional impact and the descriptive power of the music? One sits there thinking - ooh how clever, how do they do it, I hope dear Simon doesn't really drown or catch his death of cold, which is not what Berg wants us to think

[amac]

When I saw it last time round - you could see the pipe. I hope the water is warm !

I am not going until the 15th - but I seem to remember it was quite effective on stage.

[Miriam]

I saw the production in one of the previous revivals and during that final scene I was just looking through my binoculars (from the Amphi) trying to work out how they did it, I was not really engaged with the drama at all.

[linda]

I don't like it at all - from a safety standpoint. I'm not an expert, but that stunt can't be good for the singer, mouthpiece or no mouthpiece.

And for the libretto followers, Gilda gets stabbed, but it's in the dark, and the audience hears it. It's not right there in our face, so to speak. Same with Wozzeck. He drowns, but not downstage in a fish tank for all to see.

What's left to be evoked in our mind from listening to the music and "seeing" someone die offstage? For me, that's part of the magic of opera. And it's destroyed by cheesy stagings like this one.
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Intermezzo replies - I'm guessing you haven't seen it, or you wouldn't use the word cheesy to describe it.

Plenty of conventional stagings of popular operas - Tosca and La bohème for example - typically include deaths on stage. Do they destroy the 'magic of opera'?

[Nik]

I completely disagree with the disparaging comments above. I felt that the immersion not only produced a stunning visual effect, but for me it added a strong element of consistency to the staging. In each of the scenes, the contents of the respective plastic boxes indicate what's going on in the scene and Wozzeck's state of mind, and to me it felt completely logical that by the end of the evening he should end up in a plastic box itself. The question of subtlety didn't even cross my mind. It just felt like a perfect conclusion to what had gone before. I loved it. I'll get my coat now.

[Thomas]

"One sits there thinking - ooh how clever..." Not unless one is uncommonly insensitive, surely? Or deaf, I suppose.

[Sarah]

The biggest distraction this caused last night was the lady in front of me chatting away to her partner about how was he doing it… till the gentleman sitting next to me and I decided, by coincidence, simultaneously to tap her on either shoulder to shut her up. She probably couldn't work out how that was done either.

We were on the left side of row E of the stalls, so if she couldn't see from there how it was being done as Simon thrashed around to get the pipe into his mouth, then she had no hope.

Other than that, it was a fabulous night at the opera, amazed more folk didn't take advantage of the champagne bar remaining open, we definitely needed a drink by the end.