Austria - Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Medieval morality play Jedermann has become a classic centrepiece of the world-renowned Salzburg Festival. First performed in 1920 – directed by Max Reinhardt – when the festival was inaugurated, it has been staged most years since then in the city’s magnificent Domplatz (Cathedral Square).
2024 saw the staging of a new, fresh, contemporary, and acclaimed version created by Canadian director Robert Carsen, who was also the scenographer, and costume designer Luis Carvalho. Lighting was designed by Carsen and Giuseppe di Iorio, with the latter specifying Robe iForte LTXs to deal with all the essential key lighting needed to bring the work alive and disrupt preconceptions about how the play can be presented.
Jedermann was performed nightly throughout the five-week 2024 event, either in Cathedral Square, or in case of inclement weather – a decision made each day up to three hours before the start of the show – in the Grosses Festspielhaus.
Giuseppe, an Italian LD based in Lisbon and lighting many opera productions, has collaborated on several previous projects with Carsen. He specified the 16 x Robe iForte LTXs which were supplied by Bari, Italy-based rental company Lucidiscena.
Lucidiscena in turn invested in the fixtures especially for this work, purchasing from Robe’s Italian distributor, RM Multimedia. The company’s CEO Pino Loconsole was equally stoked to be involved as the lighting supplier for such a high-impact project.
Lucidiscena was working directly for producer Moritz Hauthaler. The show’s technical director was Andreas Zechner and the head of lighting for the festival was Hubert Schwaiger, and thanks to “their excitement and commitment to our vision, Robert and I were able to deliver the show using these fantastic new Robe fixtures,” commented Giuseppe.
Robert’s scenic design provided one starting point for the lighting, together with the site itself, which due to the layout, had certain preordained lighting rigging points plus other challenges like PA arrays obstructing several of these in the higher up positions.
To circumvent this, Giuseppe created two new steeper angled lighting positions either side of the stage for iFortes which maximised coverage of the entire stage area, and more iFortes were concentrated on the upper tribune positions at FOH.
As the festival this year also coincided with the summer Olympics in Paris, sourcing certain pieces of kit was quite challenging, so while ideally Giuseppe would have liked to use more Robe fixtures than these 16 x iFortes, he had to include others on the plot as he also had to light the cathedral façade and other elements around the audience area.
Most of the 50 or so fixtures were lifted to the roof positions with the assistance of a crane.
All the lighting was programmed on site during 10 designated focus sessions and some inevitable interruptions due to rain. In case of rain, the show also had to be rigged and rehearsed for the 500-capacity indoor venue as well, adding to the logistics and the pressure during the rehearsal and tech periods.
After press night, the outdoor and outdoor show lighting was run by operators from the festival crew.
Giuseppe is highly selective about the fixtures he uses, and Robe is a regular brand on his specs. Pino Loconsole is also passionate about lights and puts much thought and research into his investments. He was delighted to win the pitch to provide lights for Jedermann at the 2024 Salzburg festival, and it was a great pleasure to be working with Giuseppe again.
“We needed a profile luminaire that could punch in from the front about 60/70 meters from the stage, and when I saw the iForte LTX, I immediately knew it would be the perfect solution for this job, so I proposed Giuseppe also looked at them … and he agreed.”
