A staging that puts the underworld above rather than below, so every descent in the text is a physical ascent into the flies.
The production inverts the geography: the underworld is up in the flies and the living world is on the deck. Every descent in the libretto becomes a climb, and the lighting had to sell that without ever contradicting the words.
The answer was to make up warm and down cold — the exact reverse of the instinct. Amber and straw pour down from the grid, and the stage floor is lit in steel from the sides. When Orfeo climbs, he climbs into warmth. It should feel wrong, and it does.
There is no open white in the entire rig. Everything is gelled, which in a house this size means significantly more units to reach the same levels. Worth it: the absence of any neutral reference means the audience never gets a fixed point to measure the colour against, and the whole evening floats.
Sixteen years pass in one cue. The first half is lit almost entirely from behind and above; the second admits front light for the first time.
A single amber special and eleven minutes of near-total darkness. The hardest thing we have been asked to light.
Nine hours, no performers, no cues. A room that changes so slowly nobody sees it happen.
That is genuinely enough to start a conversation. Dates and budget help, but they are not the first question — the first question is what the room is being asked to do.