At The Vienna Opera, A Female Composer, Transgender Story, And Costumes by Comme

“I was wanting to focus on fashion, especially Comme des Garçons and Rei Kawakubo, because she is one of my role models and heroes,” said Neuwirth, as she received heartfelt appreciation backstage.

“It’s about abstraction of body, enlargement of body, deconstruction of body – that is how my music is. It’s about the androgynous way of thinking about fashion, art and life,” the composer said.

The effect on stage was exceptional, from the rich colours and fabrics to the sense of theatricality melded with reality. It was a visual Mad Hatter’s tea party, but every garment, hair-do and hat was imbued with historic references, often illusive but always striking.

In fact, Rei Kawakubo had already given a taste of this rich and billowing costume design by offering elements of the operatic outfits in her Paris fashion show in Autumn 2019. True to form, after working for the opera for more than a month in her Tokyo atelier on the enormous roster of clothes – historic and contemporary – the reclusive designer returned to Tokyo, leaving her husband Adrian Joffe to negotiate the edits and approvals.

“The only other stage work Rei has designed was 22 years ago for [the choreographer and dancer] Merce Cunningham – Scenario, which was revived just last week at the Festival d’Automne à Paris,” Joffe explained.

Virginia Woolf’s playful exploration of gender fluidity seems currently so meaningful, even without any of the modern nuances. The outfits were stunning, say a meld of a fairy story in classic dress, but with giant sleeves, and a scarlet gown wrapped in loose folds across a man’s body.

Headwear – or “Hair Creation” as the programme called it – was provided by Rei’s long-term collaborator, Julien d’Ys, who produced wondrous hair-dos in all their curly craziness. Stephen Jones, milliner extraordinaire, was another element. The hat man explained how he came to be involved in the opera:

“I was getting on a plane to work on The Met exhibition and I got a phone call from Adrian saying, ‘You remember those masks you did? We would love to have some more like that.’ I asked how many he would need, and he said 53 –in three days! And we did it! In fact we did it in two days, amazingly enough.

“It was great to be part of it and to understand the characters and script so I could read into what the headdresses were supposed to mean, in particular the scenes they were used in.

“Theatre production has to be understood immediately, because there may be just 20 seconds on stage, so it almost has to be a ‘poster’ of a hat, whereas a hat that someone is going to ‘read’ in the street or a fashion show is very different because it is about the person who is wearing it.”

Joffe explained that Rei had produced her tide of costumes in record time. “With thinking about it in her head, it may have been a little bit longer, but actually making them was done in about six weeks.

“And yes – that is incredibly fast,“ Joffe continued. “She was probably thinking about it for a couple of months before in her head. She was thinking what she was going to do for the women for a while, and the actual making started later.”

The visual message, supported so strongly by the music, was of powerful women wearing their garments, however strange, with pride.

I asked Joffe what he thought Rei drew from this unusual commission. “Oh my God! I’ve no idea what she gets out of it,” Joffe said. “I think she is really excited to see what peoples’ reactions are. She thinks something so strong is good for the image of Comme des Garçons. It’s the first time a woman has been asked to do the opera in 150 years. I think she liked that idea.”

Emerging from the sweep of music and the performances of the enormous cast, applauded to the echo by the audience, was the sense that this was indeed a historic moment: The first time a woman has composed an opera for the Vienna Opera House; the first transgender subject on the hallowed stage.

Olga Neuwirth has taken into her stride all these firsts, involving Orlando’s deals with duality and trans identity. But she was not going to say it was easy.

“In this house it was very difficult, I have to say,” she admitted. “It’s a very traditional repertoire house, and I had to fight for everything. I had to fight for the costumes, I had to fight for the video panels, I had to fight for the light, and I had to fight for the people I wanted to involve. So it was like pushing all these walls through to the grandeur of vision.”

I only have the knowledge to judge the costume – although I was fascinated by the music. But anything that contributes to the strength of women is for the good of all womankind.