Jan. 20, 2025

Life Imitating Art: La bohème's painterly sets

blank-image
Designer David Farley's set model for Act I of HGO's production of La bohème

"For this production, designer David Farley and I have chosen to imagine that the characters of the opera may act as our interpreters. If Schaunard, the composer, is represented in the pit by Puccini himself, the scenic world that the bohemians inhabit is as if painted by Marcello. Ever y surface of the set is a canvas drawn f rom the same rich and chaotic pictorial world as that of Toulouse-Lautrec—a contemporary of Puccini and an artist who was himself obsessed by the bohemian underworld of Paris."

 

—John Caird, La bohème director

blank-image
David Farley's set model for Act II of La bohème
Six Questions for La bohème Set and Costume Designer David Farley

Backstage Pass: When in the 19th century do you imagine this production taking place?

 

David Farley: I based the piece around the 1890s, when the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was creating work in Paris.

 

BP: Why Toulouse-Lautrec?

 

DF: The artist was a great fit for the opera as he was very much an outsider and bohemian in Montmartre who hung out with the dancers at the Moulin Rouge.

 

BP: Are the paintings existing works by historical artists?

 

DF: The main paintings are all original pieces, but the colors and brush work were taken from Toulouse-Lautrec paintings. There are some reproductions of Toulouse-Lautrec sketches that appear in the garret.

blank-image
Works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec featured in David Farley's set for La bohème: portrait of Hélène Vary (ca. 1889), La mélinite dansant (1892), Femme nue debout de face (1898)

BP: Are the canvases printed or painted?

 

DF: All of the canvases were hand painted, not printed. My father, Peter Farley, helped create the base painting of the Act II street which I then split into the individual paintings.

 

BP: How is the set assembled?


DF: It’s one big jigsaw puzzle! There is a very important “Bible” that travels with the show, and all the individual canvases have code letters.

 

BP: Where did you get your ideas for the costumes?

 

DF: For the costumes I drew a lot of inspiration from the French photographer Eugène Atget, who documented street life in Paris in the 1890s. These were a wonderful source of details I was able to add, particularly with the street vendors and peasants.

blank-image
Left: Eugène Atget's Marchand d'Abat-Jours (1901); right: David Farley's costume design for Parpignol the toyseller
about the author
Joe Cadagin
Joe Cadagin is the Audience Education and Communications Manager at Houston Grand Opera.