The bed, explained by production manager Robert Schulzke – Our production of Rossini's IL VIAGGIO A REIMS takes place in a large, reflective hospital ward that becomes increasingly narrow as it extends further back. On each of its side walls is a row of six beds. Hospital beds on a stage are nothing special – in this case, the stage designer wants the entire scenery to lead toward one central point of escape. Firstly this meant that we had to construct the beds, with their mattresses and sheets, in the shape of parallelograms so that they follow the course of the wall. Secondly, the beds become smaller and flatter the further back they are: The front bed is almost two metres long, and about 1.15 metres tall at its head. The rear bed is just 1.3 metres long and only about 90 centimetres tall. This results in humorous moments throughout, as the singers lying in the beds do not of course adhere to the laws of the perspective as seen by the audience, and no one wants to have the short beds. We have also welded each bed into one piece. Such a steel bed is considerably heavy, but it also remains stable when subjected to horseplay on the stage.

Il viaggio a Reims © Thomas Aurin