Ruben Dahmen

Idomeneo

Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam · 2025 · Props maker

Stage image in red light: two enormous discs of knotted red rope hang above the chorus, with a singer below raising her arms inside a red boat frame.
Rehearsal room with white walls: four people lift a large plane of coarse red rope netting; white and red set frames stand in the background.
Stage image: a singer stands behind a red-painted boat frame, with dancers in front bound to one another and to the frame with red rope.
Stage image: three white boat frames float at an angle in front of a dense curtain of red yarn; below, a row of singers stands around a figure lying in a net.
Stage image of the same production at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, with the red rope work and the singers in dark costumes.
Close view of a curtain of thousands of red threads, with the white boat frames faintly visible hanging behind it.
Two knotted discs of red rope above the stage. 01 / 06

Thousands of metres of red rope, knotted into nets and boats. Whatever floats on stage also has to fall open, to roll, and to stand still — that is the work you do not see.

The work

The set is by the artist Chiharu Shiota, known for her installations of stretched red yarn; the direction and choreography are by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. I worked here as a props maker, through the preparation and the rehearsals as well as during the performances in Amsterdam.

That work is about translating an idea into something that actually performs on stage. A small boat that has to come apart at the right moment, the instant a rope is pulled. A throne that has to roll and move, yet stand perfectly still when dancers climb onto it. Nets that have to fall open exactly when someone comes through them, and not a beat sooner.

That is designing, only not in the layer you can see. The image itself was settled; what had to happen behind it was not. How does it hinge, how is it stored, how does it reach its place within four counts in the dark, and how does it survive a whole run. Playing inventor a little — and then building it and operating it so that it looks the way it was meant to.

The department

The opera’s props department describes its own work as being a sounding board: you translate what the designer pictures into something that actually performs on stage. The work is in wood, metal, plastics, paint and textiles, and wherever possible in material that already exists. That last instinct is the one I work by myself.

Production
Idomeneo, re di Creta — W.A. Mozart
House
Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam
Year
2025 — seven performances, 7–23 February
My role
Props: preparation, rehearsals and performances
Direction and choreography
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
Set
Chiharu Shiota
Costumes
Yuima Nakazato
Lighting
Michael Bauer
Musical direction
Laurence Cummings, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra
Co-production
Grand Théâtre de Genève and Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg
Photography
Image 6 is mine. Images 1, 3 and 4 appear with the photographer’s permission, at his request without a credit. Image 2 (Bart Grietens) and image 5 (Magali Dougados): permission requested