Handel's Tamerlano at 2003 Spoleto Festival U.S.A.
photos by Lenore Doxsee

Our good friend David Zinn, costume and set designer extraordinaire, has a new web site. We first saw his work as a little baby designer with Target Margin, with whom he continues to work, in addition to more famous venues such as New York City Opera and Santa Fe Opera.

When we saw his Flavio at New York City Opera, the audience applauded the set changes.

Tamerlano is an opera by Handel loosely based on the life of Timur, a conqueror and ruler in 14th century Central Asia. Suitably for an opera set in that region of the world, being produced last summer at an American music festival, David didn't ignore what was going on at the time.

In Handel's rarely mounted Tamerlano, the defeated Bajazet...wore traditional sultan's robes, while his corporate conquerors, barking orders and gleefully dividing the spoils, sported snazzy business suits. Mixing sexual and power politics, the libretto is nearly incomprehensible, but its centre--Bajazet losing his culture, his dignity and his daughter--is tragically clear. David Zinn's cunning set was littered with ancient books and other looted treasures at the front of the stage, and endless, empty bookshelves at the rear.