The multi-award-winner (for ”Hangmen”) on creating visual worlds for opera and theatre
2016 has been Anna Fleischle‘s year, and it’s not even half over. Hangmen changed everything for the London-based German designer: since that show opened at the Royal Court she’s also provided the look for Matthew Perry‘s The End of Longing and tonight’s RSC opener, Melly Still‘s gender-swapping Cymbeline.
A trio of best design awards for Martin McDonagh‘s mordant gallows play (Evening Standard, Critics’ Circle and the Olivier) have made Fleischle the hottest property on the circuit even before the UK catches its first glimpse of her work on Complicite‘s Beware the Pity.
But Fleischle remains loyal to her flourishing relationship with English Touring Opera. Her designs for Britten’s Paul Bunyan and Tippett’s King Priam helped the company win the 2014 Olivier for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, and she’s enriched the currently ongoing national tour with forceful and, given the modest resources, spectacular settings for Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride and Lloyd Wood’s five star production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.