Adolphe Appia

Scene designer and theatrical producer, born in Geneva, SW Switzerland. He was one of the first to introduce simple planes instead of rich stage settings, and pioneered the symbolic use of lighting, particularly in the presentation of opera.

Adolphe Appia was a Swiss theorist and pioneer of modern stage design. Appia rejected painted two dimensional sets for three-dimensional ‘living’ sets because he believed that shade was as necessary as light to form a connection between the actor and the setting of the performance in time and space. Through the use of control of light intensity, colour and manipulation, Appia created a new perspective of scene design and stage lighting.

Directors and designers have both taken great inspiration from the work of Adolphe Appia, whose design theories and conceptualizations of Wagner’s opera’s have helped to shape modern perceptions of the relationship between the performance space and lighting. One of the reasons for the influence of Appia’s work and theories, is that he was working at time when electrical lighting was just evolving. He advocated three elements as fundamental to creating a unified and effective mise en scene:

Dynamic and three dimensional movements by actors Perpendicular scenery Using depth and the horizontal dynamics of the performance space

(Brockett 1994)

Appia saw light, space and the human body as malleable commodities which should be integrated to create a unified mise en scene. He advocated synchronicity of sound, light and movement in his productions of Wagner’s operas and he tried to integrate corps of actors with the rhythms and moods of the music. Ultimately however, Appia considered light as the primary element which fused together all aspects of a production and he consistently attempted to unify musical and movement elements of the text and score to the more mystical and symbolic aspects of light. In his productions, light was ever changing, manipulated from moment to moment, from action to action. Ultimately, Appia sort to unify stage movement and the use of space, stage rhythm and the mise en scene.

Appia was one of the first designers to understand the potential of stage lighting to do more than merely illuminate actors and painted scenery.

For Appia and for his productions, the mise en scene and the totality or unity of the performance experience was primary and he believed that these elements drove movement and initiated action more than any thing else (Johnston 1972).