Das Requisit ... Eine riesige Zunge - Deutsche Oper Berlin
From Libretto #3 (2022)
Props ... A huge tongue
Production manager Matthias Klimmek explains how they slide a huge tongue out onto the stage
In the background of the DON QUICHOTTE set the face of a sleeping giant is visible. At one of the pivotal moments in the story a tongue slowly emerges from the giant’s mouth, getting longer and longer until it’s almost at the lip of the stage. Our task was not only to make this tongue look as realistic as possible but also to design it to be walked upon. Meaning it was to be a sort of tongue-shaped rug. To achieve this, we cut blocks of polystyrene to size, stuck them together and covered them in cloth onto which we then slapped a paste that’s designed to emulate the pink surface of a tongue complete with taste buds. It’s 12 metres long, and we had to find a way to get the thing extended. We initially had the idea of slowly rolling the rolled-up tongue out, but that would have conjured up images of a rolled-up marinated herring. Our current solution is to have it waiting in two-metre strips, which are then pushed out of the mouth by our props colleagues and pulled gently forward by onstage extras. I can’t tell you how relieved I am not to have to get the tongue back into the mouth afterwards.
