An in-demand New Zealand fashion designer lends baroque opera a new Trelise of life.
Trelise Cooper describes the type of woman who wears her lavishly theatrical and meticulously detailed clothes as unconventional, brave and with a sense of humour. This could also describe the four-year-old Victorian Opera company, committed to producing new and unfamiliar operas, as well as standard repertoire, in unexpected venues or in surprising ways. For its co-production with The NBR New Zealand Opera of Handel’s Xerxes, a comic tale of love lost, gained and unrequited, costumes are by the acclaimed Cooper, whose designs are sold in Australasia, Asia, Europe and the US.
A music lover who performed in light opera and musicals when she was young, the Auckland-based Cooper is a member of The Opera Guild, fundraising body for New Zealand Opera. She was approached last year by the company’s general director, Aidan Lang, with this current proposal. “For me it’s outside anything I’ve done before,” she says, “but I loved the idea of the opera, of having the freedom for it to be modern, but with historical references. It’s a bit of a dream, really.”
With the promise of the costumes (including shoes, wigs and accessories) being the centrepiece of the production, Cooper and her team of 75 have “free rein to be really creative, to embellish, which I love to do. The opera is set in Persia, BC, and was written by Handel in the 1700s, so we’re borrowing elements from both eras and combining them with a modern silhouette and a strong cut.”
Cooper’s research, using history books and the opera itself, delved into the characters’ personalities to determine the clothes they should wear. King Xerxes “was vain, but jealous of his better-looking younger brother, more conservative; that really informed us how he might look. We’ve funked up the younger brother.”
The opera has few costume changes, which also influenced Cooper’s designs. She drew on her fashion label for guidance.
“My brand is known for its attention to detail, for having detail in the small as well as the larger things. The inside of a garment is as interesting as the outside. I want to bring those elements through here, and for the audience to keep on discovering as they look at the garments, as they look at the characters. I want them to see something they perhaps didn’t see an hour before.”
Perhaps because Cooper, whose high-profile fans include Sharon Stone, Julia Roberts and Reese Witherspoon, had no training when she began in fashion, she is unhampered by rules.
“It’s been a freedom; it has let me explore things in a way I may not have done otherwise.”
That has extended to the Xerxes costumes. While many stage costumes are not what they appear, Cooper has gone for the authentic, “with silks that rustle”; richly coloured costumes that look as beautiful up close as they do from a distance. “Velvets, silks and suiting for the boys” were sent to India to be beaded and embellished using traditional sari embroidery and other specialist techniques. “It’s lots of golds and pewters, things that look a little aged, not as if they’ve come straight off a production line.”
Cooper is quick to dispel the notion that opera singers are not model material. The cast, she says, has, “some very nice-looking, nice-bodied people and that makes my job very easy”. At least two of the female singers, she says, wear her label in real life and another: “I’m not sure about – she’s a male in this, anyway”. In a light-hearted romp through the tangled web of love, you’re bound to get at least one case of gender disguise.
Designing for particular singers and their characters, and needing costumes able to withstand being taken on and off and worn for several hours every night, make the project very different from working on a collection. But it has also given Cooper a welcome opportunity to be “a little over the top – these days, people are looking to wear pieces that are more timeless”.
Designing for men has been the new challenge: “It’s a different silhouette, a different cut. In my big plan, I’ll be bringing out a menswear label; it’s only a matter of time.”
For Cooper, there won’t be much difference between opening night and fashion week. “I never love a parade. If I’m sitting at a parade and my label’s about to come out, I’m never comfortable. This will be the same, I’m sure.” As for the audience, “I’m hoping people will look and say, when they look at the jackets, ‘That’s so cool, I’d love to wear that with my jeans’.”
Xerxes, Melbourne Recital Centre, August 13-20.
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