Courtesy of Sagepress/Festspielhaus.de

Designer duo Viktor & Rolf recently explored fresh new spaces within which to express their extrovert sartorial theatricality. Several weeks ago, their glorious costumes graced the Baden-Baden’s Festival Theatre in occasion of the staging of  Carl Maria von Weber’s opera, ‘Der Freischütz’, directed by Robert Wilson.

Using almost a million Swarovski crystals and maintaining their colourfully theatrical, quasi grotesque approach, their final aesthetic result was show stopping. Nevertheless, it seemed that von Weber had little to do with Viktor & Rolf ’s fashionable extravaganza.

An assiduous fan of Wilson’s controversial yet highly acclaimed theatrical works, I have witnessed something of a downfall in recent years since the staging of ’Prometheus‘. Perhaps his collaboration with this fresh designer duo was Wilson’s bid to surprise the audience?

Although the idea of bringing fashionistas to the opera is one worth exploring, ‘Der Freischütz’’s references to the supernatural and dreams simply did not relate to Viktor & Rolf’s ambitious designs. For those of us who love both fashion and opera, the collaboration was nothing more than a well-directed provocation from Wilson to his critics that have often described his performances as ’slow’ and ‘boring.’ The much publicized costumes were indeed stunning, yet would have better suited another production or perhaps a conceptual installation.

As an Oscar-winning costume designer once advised me, ‘When you get critics that praise or pay much attention to your costume designs for a particular performance or play, take that as a sign that you haven’t managed to skillfully incorporate your work to the overall concept–or indeed, that there was no concept in the first place.’