Not on display

Don Giovanni

Set Design
1980 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Design by Michael Annals for a backdrop for Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, New York City Opera, Lincoln Center, New York, 1980.

Michael Annals (1938-1990) trained at Hornsey College of Art and began his career designing sets and costumes for the Old Vic. In 1963 the newly formed National Theatre Company moved into the Old Vic and Annals joined them, having his first major success with his designs for Peter Shaffer's historical epic, The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964). He went on to have an international career, designing for the theatre and for ballet, opera and film, but is most closely associated with the National Theatre, where he created notable settings for a range of productions, including O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night starring Laurence Olivier, Hecht and MacArthur's The Front Page and Shaw's Heartbreak House. Annals frequently worked in the United States and was Associate Professor of Scenic Design at Yale in 1966-1967. In 1984 he gave up the stage and took up photography and illustration.

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleDon Giovanni (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Watercolour on board
Brief description
Design by Michael Annals for a backdrop for Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, New York City Opera, Lincoln Center, New York, 1980
Physical description
Design by Michael Annals for a backdrop for Don Giovanni, showing, centre, a building with three towers surmounted by domes, under a vast orange and black sky, as though surrounded by flames.
Dimensions
  • Design height: 39.7cm
  • Design width: 57cm
  • Mount height: 54cm
  • Mount width: 75cm
Marks and inscriptions
Transliteration
Credit line
Bequeathed by Michael Annals
Summary
Design by Michael Annals for a backdrop for Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, New York City Opera, Lincoln Center, New York, 1980.

Michael Annals (1938-1990) trained at Hornsey College of Art and began his career designing sets and costumes for the Old Vic. In 1963 the newly formed National Theatre Company moved into the Old Vic and Annals joined them, having his first major success with his designs for Peter Shaffer's historical epic, The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964). He went on to have an international career, designing for the theatre and for ballet, opera and film, but is most closely associated with the National Theatre, where he created notable settings for a range of productions, including O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night starring Laurence Olivier, Hecht and MacArthur's The Front Page and Shaw's Heartbreak House. Annals frequently worked in the United States and was Associate Professor of Scenic Design at Yale in 1966-1967. In 1984 he gave up the stage and took up photography and illustration.
Bibliographic reference
Arnold Wengrow, Observe and show: the theatre art of Michael Annals (London: V&A Publications, 2003)
Collection
Accession number
S.697-1991

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Record createdDecember 8, 2016
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