Helping to tell stories
Peter Pabst, designer of Der Rosenkavalier speaks about the role of sets and costumes
“I am a relatively naïve person and try to remain so. I like to watch wonderful stories if they are told in a nice way. That is what theatre tries to do: tell stories that almost everyone knows in a nice way. That has much more to do with feeling than with intellect.” Peter Pabst, designer of Der Rosenkavalier in the staging by Robert Carsen, does not want to reveal any ideas on Rosenkavalier in the coming festival summer, “because people then try to see what they have once read about.”
He is well aware of all the “stylistic caesuras and intervals in time” occurring in Der Rosenkavalier, says Pabst, and charmingly evades pretentious questions. “What all the musicologists and German literary specialists have written is not my job. One knows the facts, has absorbed them and is in full command of one’s craft. Nevertheless, the central question for me is, how can I tell the story in a nice way? How can I present the people on stage in such a way that the audience is interested in them?” Designer Peter Pabst emphasises that nice for him does not mean, “just nice” but “gripping, understandable, conveying feeling.” And for him it is important that “Anyone who is interested in watching, should feel something.”
Thus the question about a temporal, philosophical, stylistic or any other kind of concept in his work – be it on Der Rosenkavalier or any other work is superfluous. “If you tell a story well, it does not matter if it takes place
today or 250 years ago.” Pabst stresses that “There is no logical relationship between ‘modern’ and the sense that ‘this has something to do with us’. There is a woman who is sad because her husband has left her. We know exactly what it is about, irrespective of whether she is wearing a historical costume or modern dress. It is a question of how she feels, not of thinking about ‘time’. What the Marschallin goes through is an everyday experience that each and every one of us understands, even men who once had a youthful girlfriend”.
“Theatre is an art form in which many and variously talented people are involved. The product is not a beautiful stage set or a fantastic staging concept. The product is a wonderful evening of theatre.” Pabst likes it when singers, designers, dancers, directors mutually inspire one another, “by what they do. They are all one family who attempt to tell a story and want the result to be a good evening of theatre.” But each individual has to make his or her own contribution and not that of the other, Peter Pabst stresses and goes on to say, “There are stage designers who try to determine what the story is about. Yet the stage set cannot tell a story. That is the task of the actors or singers. As a stage designer you can indeed help them by creating an environment that helps them to tell their story.“
This is also true of the costumes. “The effect the costumes have on actors is important. It is a question of giving them something to wear that helps them to tell the story.” A lot has changed in the past twenty years. Formerly something was devised, then a drawing was made, the drawings went to the atelier and “when the things came on the stage, it was shortly before the premiere. There was often a risk that a costume might not really belong to the singer”, relates Pabst. “Nowadays rehearsals take place in costumes at a much earlier stage. This influences the artists because they feel and act differently. And then something can develop“.
Nevertheless artist Peter Pabst likes to take a back seat and it is not a matter of false modesty when he says, “It’s not necessary for the audience to be aware at every moment that I was there too. When I have done the costumes, what is most important for me is that ultimately and as far as possible people do not realise that the artist was wearing a costume. When that happens it was ‘his’ or ‘hers’ and no longer the invention of someone else.” This is an easy position to adopt and has nothing to do with vanity but with “self-confidence and success if you do not always have to stress, ‘Yes, I was here too!’ In thirty years of working in the theatre I can only remember three critics who mentioned the costume designer. And those were the productions where the costumes were inappropriate.”
“It is not the job of an artist to know all the answers. It is the job of an artist to pose questions. The story is over when I myself have found an answer”, summarizes Peter Pabst. “If you make things too clear, they become boring. I find it important to leave something open and not always want to know and answer everything”.
Heidemarie Klabacher interviewed Peter Pabst.