Riposta teamed up with New York City independent opera company LoftOpera, to support its mission of bringing new audiences to opera with daring and relevant productions of the classical repertoire. Design and construction services were offered free of charge for the 2016 production of Verdi's Macbeth. Riposta worked closely with the production team to create a set that was less concerned with clear delineations of exterior and interior, but rather a flexible environment evocative of the sinister forces and primal urges which permeate the work.
Recycled and donated materials were used to create a rocky and dramatic psychic landscape for Verdi’s masterpiece to unfold. The production was a resounding success and our unique collaboration was highlighted publicly by an article published in The New York Times.
Riposta teamed up with New York City independent opera company LoftOpera, to support its mission of bringing new audiences to opera with daring and relevant productions of the classical repertoire. Design and construction services were offered free of charge for the 2016 production of Verdi's Macbeth. Riposta worked closely with the production team to create a set that was less concerned with clear delineations of exterior and interior, but rather a flexible environment evocative of the sinister forces and primal urges which permeate the work. Recycled and donated materials were used to create a rocky and dramatic psychic landscape for Verdi’s masterpiece to unfold. The production was a resounding success and our unique collaboration was highlighted publicly by an article published in The New York Times.
DDG was proud to sponsor the Conversation Pit at Design Miami’s 2016 celebration of design culture and commerce. In order to continue the organizers' mission of sustainability and community engagement after the event, Riposta coordinated the dismantling and donation of the Conversation Pit to the Center for Haitian Studies, Health, and Human Services which was founded in 1988 for the purpose of serving the disenfranchised populations of Little Haiti/Little River in Miami. The former Conversation Pit now serves as an engaging forum for the education of young health professionals who minister to this historically under-served community.
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For Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West, Riposta teamed up with Apotheosis Opera, another independent opera company, dedicated to making the form more accessible to new audiences through the performance of English libretti. For this piece, we envisioned an abstracted, modular environment which would evoke the alienation and dissociation of the California gold miners, while providing visual continuity between the three acts and making the most of donated and found materials.
The primary design elements are small plywood cylinders which perform alternately as stools, beds, tables and tree stumps. The third act is traditionally set in a lush forest clearing, however, we set the action in a deforested waste land where only a single tree stands to witness our protagonist’s spiritual desolation. Our reconstituted tree is an assemblage of stumps, a hasty simulacrum like the earnestly cobbled-together lives of the miners.
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Riposta partnered with Arrow International to provide
financial support for Festival Opera’s 2018 production
of La Traviata.
Risposta teamed up with Apotheosis Opera again to design and build the set for Capriccio by Richard Strauss. A rarely performed opera, Capriccio is a daring piece of meta-theater, revolutionary at the time of its composition in 1941. It tells the story of a poet, a composer and their patron, exploring the very nature of art and the creative process as they unwittingly labour to compose the very opera which is in fact being performed on stage.
In order explore the perceptual dynamic of front-stage and back-stage activities we took cues from the physical nature of the theatre where the performance was staged and used these as playful motifs that developed throughout the work. As a meditation on the purpose and nature of art, Strauss’ Capriccio is an exhortation to continually make our lives an offering to architecture.
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When Napier’s Hawke’s Bay Airport was preparing to open its new Arrivals Terminal, the team realized it needed something special to imbue the space with warmth and vibrancy while the permanent cafe was still under construction on another part of the site. Riposta volunteered design and construction management services to bring the KeteKai Pop-Up to life. The design was inspired by the region's horticultural sector with its rustic wooden slats and glossy red benchtop representing rough-hewn crates overflowing with succulent Hawke's Bay produce. The vertical fins are also a nod to the streamlined classicism which characterizes the Art Deco styling for which Napier is so renowned.
