A stage wagon that is. 
You can be forgiven for not knowing what a stage wagon is. In fact most COC staff didn’t know what it was either until our technical and production colleagues shed light on the subject, and it’s so fun that we’re sharing it with you too!

A stage wagon is a piece of stage equipment that sits underneath a set (or a portion of a set) and acts as a kind of huge skateboard to move that set around. (Simply put, it’s a really large platform on wheels.) A “moveable” set is a boon to us because normal changeovers between two opera have, up until now, required completely dismantling and reassembling each set piece by piece before we could move it on or off stage. With the new stage wagon, we can change over operas in much less time. And, our current run of Don Giovanni and Die Walküre is our “test drive” with the wagon!

The COC has presented this production of Die Walküre twice before (in 2004 and 2006), and, as anyone who has seen it knows, it’s a huge set. Previously, it would take a minimum of 11 hours (usually overnight) for the stagehands to dismantle the set and move in the other opera. And, then, the following day, the Walküre set would have to be moved on stage and reassembled for the next performance. That’s a lot of stagehands and technicians working a lot of hours.

With our new stage wagon, this whole process becomes a lot simpler. Watch this time-lapse video of the set changeover from Don Giovanni to Die Walküre which took place the night of January 20. The stage wagon’s moment to shine is from 1:33 – 1:43!

 

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 To buy your tickets to Don Giovanni and Die Walküre today at