Scenography for the Salomé at Salzburg Festival
The ‘Black Sphere’ was part of the set design of the ‘Salomé’ by Romeo Castellucci for Salzburg Festival in 2018.
In was created to be inflated with warm air, in compliance with the concept of the director Castellucci. At the end of the opera, he wanted the scenic object to ‘fluctuate on the characters and inflate very slowly until devouring stage and cast’. This highly dramatic effect, of great scenic impact, would have been impossible to achieve using cold air.
The rocky setting and the structure of Felsenreitschule theatre (dug into the mountain) where the Opera was set up, represented a challenge in the installation of the inflatable, for two main reasons.
The first: the distance between the scenic object and the blowing mechanism.
The second: the background noise that this caused.
The solution required involved a 20-meter-long tube of sound-absorbing fabrics and materials, an actual soundproofing system, and a hot air injection system, preheated by a series of 30 kw electrical resistors, in order to bring it to a temperature of 80 degrees, with a flow rate of about 4000 cubic metres per hour.
- Inflated with hot air
- Insufflation sound level: 28 Db
- Air temperature: 80°C
- Max. diameter: 9 m
- Max. height: 10 m
- Square metres of fabric: 245 m²
- Volume: 350 m²
- Total weight: 18 kg
- Total blowing time on stage: 8 min
- Fabric: Polyester 75 gr/m² Water and airproof Fireproof CL 1 – B1
