This spring, both the Costume, Make-up & Wigs forum and the TechSet forum have met during their annual gathering and made sustainability an important topic of exchange, which is one of the three pillars of the Next Stage initiative.
During the Costume Make-up & Wigs forum at the Oper Zürich in Switzerland, Kristina Bell from Norwegian National Opera & Ballet presented the Green Producers Tool, which was developed to measure and facilitate the reduction of CO2 emissions during the production process. Any component of the production process can be added in the tool and its carbon emission is calculated (transport, energy, material, light…). Norwegian National Opera & Ballet collaborated on the development of the different measurement categories of the tool and the first feedback shows that it is a very flexible and versatile tool.
During the Show & Tell of the forum, all spontaneous presentations from participants were linked to the sustainability issue: from natural dye colours directly produced in the garden of Glyndebourne Festival to the collaboration of Opera national de Paris with different start ups or companies to recycle or upcycle tights, wigs or other materials or the implementation of specialised sewing masterclasses to preserve an authentic savoir faire at Latvian National Opera & Ballet, in the framework of a sustainable transmission of knowledge.
The TechSet forum met at the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet in Oslo and as always, the group mainly composed of heads of sets and stage managers strongly focused on sustainable solutions for their work. Again the Green Producers tool was presented to the group, and generated interest in the
audience. During breakout discussions, the topic ‘How to do more with less’ was deeply examined and equally sustainability as financial arguments were the core of the exchanges.
One highlight of the meeting was the presentation from the French-Belgian group Collectif 17h25 on the results of its work on standard set elements. They have now developed a prototype for a standard set element, which still needs to be finalised and will soon be tested by the participating theatres. We will keep you updated!
Royal Opera House and National Theatre Prague brought different testimonies on working along the guidelines of the Theatre Green Book during the session: Roadmap to 2030 – How to become carbon free? Working on the 3 vast pillars of the Theatre Green Book: Buildings, Operations and Productions, both theatres showed which efforts were already made and the way to go in the coming years to reduce to minimum the impact of these large institutions. It is not impossible!
Finally, Opera Europa presented the Erasmus + project INSPIRE in which Opera Europa is a partner and will develop a training scheme for professionals from the performing arts sector to become more sustainable, resilient and digital in their work.
It is very encouraging to see all the ongoing efforts put in this crucial matter. Anyone in the membership is really welcome to participate in the sustainability forum, which aims to spread information on this topic.
Please write to celia@opera-europa.org for more information.
Celia Grau
