Transatlantic transmissions in opera: the forgotten work of Czech-American Designer Richard Rychtarik

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper restores to the historical record the work of the Czech-American theater designer Richard Rychtarik (1894–1982). Born in what would later become Czechoslovakia, and trained as an architect in Prague, Rychtarik moved to the United States in 1925 where he worked successfully with many opera companies, including the Metropolitan Opera. Analyzing three selected productions that mark important transitions in Rychtarik's career and offer rich insight into his work: Die Walküre (The Cleveland Orchestra, 1934), Lady Macbeth of Mzensk (The Cleveland Orchestra, 1934), and Alceste (MET, 1941) I argue that, adapting the work of European scenic artists such as Adolphe Appia, Max Reinhardt and Vlastislav Hofman, Rychtarik embraced modernist thinking about staging and applied it in his work for opera. As a scenographer, he combined architectonic forms, distinctive colors, and conceptual work with light to transform the stage into a multifunctional dramatic space. With his scenographic designs and realizations he helped to disseminate and push through the vision of opera-theatre with a strong visual component, as practiced by Joseph Urban during his years on North-American stages, and so contributed to carving out a space for the designer as both the artist and the artisan, and one of the important agents in the process of opera-making.