Cody Quattlebaum, Hanna Hipp, Hubert Francis, Mary Bevan, ENO’s The Marriage of Figaro 2025 © Zoe Martin
Cody Quattlebaum, Hanna Hipp, Hubert Francis, Mary Bevan, ENO’s The Marriage of Figaro 2025 © Zoe Martin
Live
English National Opera
The Marriage of Figaro
year
2025
capabilities
Asset Coordination
Integration
Service & Support
Machinery Automation
Performer Flying
English National Opera, whose home is the Coliseum in London, one of many London theatres equipped with our technology as part of the venue’s permanent facilities. ENO regularly deploys additional TAIT assets, including products from our Kinesys family, to achieve dramatic automation effects in productions.
Their latest triumph continues this: the 2025 ENO staging of a new production of Mozart’s beloved comic opera, The Marriage of Figaro, which packs in a dazzling procession of madcap comic schemes and setbacks, all of which are supported by some of the most sublime music ever written.
Cody Quattlebaum, Hanna Hipp, Hubert Francis, Mary Bevan, ENO’s The Marriage of Figaro 2025 © Zoe Martin
Cody Quattlebaum, Hanna Hipp, Hubert Francis, Mary Bevan, ENO’s The Marriage of Figaro 2025 © Zoe Martin
Cody Quattlebaum, Hanna Hipp, Hubert Francis, Mary Bevan, ENO’s The Marriage of Figaro 2025 © Zoe Martin
The ENO’s set design by Johannes Schütz required a huge structure to be able to elevate, in a controlled and slow manner with very smooth acceleration and deceleration, whilst carrying performers mid-aria and as singers also perform below the massive structure. The set piece, which spans the entire width of the proscenium, features four doors through which the cast enter and exit to great comic effect, which is furthered by the same happening when the set is in an elevated position, to which it moves for the dramatic opening to act 2 of the opera.
Cody Quattlebaum, Hanna Hipp, Hubert Francis, Mary Bevan, ENO’s The Marriage of Figaro 2025 © Zoe Martin
To move this huge set piece required automation products capable of lifting the heavy piece, and with all of the safety features required for both performer flying and overhead lifting. ENO therefore deployed a TAIT Automated Flying System comprising of a synchronised group of Kinesys Apex 1250 hoists powered by Kinesys Apex Drives, and associated safety controls.
Credits
Client
English National Opera
Set design
Johannes Schütz
Lighting design
Matthew Richardson
Director
Joe Hill-Gibbins
Movement director
Jenny Ogilvie
Image provided by Ivan Meneses
Zedd
Telos World Tour
Rodeo Houston