Projection designer Camilla Tassi on Handel’s La Resurrezione

When we present a period piece, much attention is placed on the sound and approximation of early performance practice, tuning, ornamentation. But, what about the other senses?

In the case of Baroque oratorio it is true that, unlike opera, the convention called for far less staging and visual design. However, many such works were presented in venues rich with visual splendor, such as the Oratorio del Santissimo Crocifisso in Rome. When you step inside these sacred spaces, you’re surrounded by frescoes and narratives all around (and above!) you. How could that not affect an audience member’s experience?

When presenting Italian Baroque oratorio today, such as Handel’s La Resurrezione, I think of what it means to take a work performed in a language our audiences in the States don't speak (in vast majority), a work now brought outside of its social, temporal, and religious context, and often brought into a secular space such as a recital hall. By programming a period work, it is our responsibility to engage with it and ask ourselves: In what ways do we want to harken back and connect to its historical roots and in what ways are we wishing (if we choose) to also innovate and present our own interpretation? I’ve always felt that, while program notes are helpful, we should push ourselves a step further. With whom are we sharing this work? Is it only for audiences familiar with this kind of work? Are we wishing to welcome a fuller range of audiences?

I’m really grateful that Chase Hopkins had interest in engaging with La Resurrezione in this context for Haymarket Opera Company. As we were presenting the oratorio in a concert hall setting at DePaul University’s Holtschneider Performance Center, we looked towards providing a layer of accessibility via the use of projection design. We often associate projection design with musicals or pop concerts, but it can be used in a way that brings us closer to the period and aesthetic. It can also engage with the performance space, beyond the use of a screen, utilizing architecture as its canvas. When an audience sees a screen, it expects content there. By using the architectural environment, one can allow the feeling of the music “conjuring up” the visual world.

In structure, each movement of the work was accompanied by paintings created on or before the composition of La Resurrezione, as the performers’ backdrop and canvas. The beauty of projection is that it can transform in a durational manner—in this instance, cued live to the music. In my training as a classical musician, it is important for me to be a partner in support of  what should be the focus (the performers and the piece), and not to distract but instead to enhance. I jokingly call it “playing the visual continuo.”

As most of the arias in the oratorio are in the da capo form, either in the “B section” or (most often) in the return of the “A section,” I would incorporate an aspect of subtle animation to the backdrop in those transitions, whether through movement, shift in color, addition of layers—all meant to match the affect of each aria and its libretto. There is a joy that comes in researching the visual world of the time, and to then share concept and storyboards with collaborators such as Chase Hopkins and Craig Trompeter, in a co-creative approach.

We often forget that the Baroque era pushed the technological advances of stagecraft and machinery. By incorporating some of these contemporary tools such as projection design (employed with a sensitivity to music and dramaturgy first and foremost), we are sharing in that Baroque vein of spectacle.

Learn more about Haymarket’s 2024 performance of Handel’s La Resurrezione.

About the author

Camilla Tassi is a projection/video designer, producer, and musician from Florence, Italy. Her design credits include La Resurrezione (Haymarket Opera Company), Falling Out of Time (Carnegie Hall), Adoration (Beth Morrison Projects), L’Orfeo (Apollo’s Fire), King Arthur (Lincoln Center, Juilliard415), Iphigénie en Tauride (Boston Baroque), Fun Home (TheaterWorks Hartford), Malhaar: A Requiem For Water (LA Master Chorale, Disney Concert Hall), Fires in the Mirror (Baltimore Center Stage), Magic Flute (Berlin Opera Academy), Path of Miracles (Conspirare, TX), Handel’s Alcina & Stravinsky’s Rossignol (Yale Opera), Elijah (Washington Chorus, Kennedy Center), and SEACHANGE (Miami City Ballet). Tassi enjoys bringing theatrical design to traditionally unstaged compositions, recontextualizing the repertoire with today’s social reality and audiences. 

Tassi has directed and produced performances of period and contemporary classical works, including Missy Mazzoli’s Song from the Uproar, a joint theater and opera project of Tennessee Williams and Larry Delinger’s Talk to Me Like the Rain, and the US premiere of Morricone’s Se questo e` un uomo. As an Italian coach Tassi has created program translations for Carnegie Hall (L'Arpeggiata). Tassi has sung with the Schola Cantorum at Yale and Apollo’s Singers/New York Philharmonic.  

Tassi holds degrees in computer science and music (Notre Dame University), digital musics (Dartmouth), and an MFA in projection design (Yale School of Drama). Burry Fredrik Design and Robert L. Tobin Opera Design Award recipient.

About The Haymarket Review: This new digital publication including thoughts about  the work produced by Haymarket is designed to deepen our connection to audiences, nurture and feed audience curiosity about historical performance, offer critical opinions and thoughtful reflections on our performances, and provide a forum for Haymarket and its audience to connect through sharing insights, opinions, learning, and expertise.