Meeting with Joyce Degenfelder can be a hair-raising experience - at least for Seattle Opera singers.
Degenfelder has served as Seattle Opera's hair and makeup designer on all of its productions since Wagner's "Parsifal" in 2003. These days, Degenfelder is up to her eyebrows in wigs - 80 to be precise - in preparation for Seattle Opera's revival of its 1997 production of Strauss' "Der Rosenkavalier."
The color and style of the wigs are dictated by the setting of "Der Rosenkavalier," a romantic comedy that is also a rumination on time, in Vienna in the 1700s.
"If you were in a position of power at that time, you wore a white wig," Degenfelder said.
Wigs with what Degenfelder calls "hard-edged fronts," which were used in Seattle Opera's 1997 production, would have been the norm during the period in which the opera is set. Degenfelder said set and costume designer Bruno Schwengl is calling for a softer look this time around.
"I think to the modern eye, it's a little too jarring to have the hard fronts, and it takes the audience out of the performance," Degenfelder said.
At Schwengl's request, Degenfelder is also creating smaller hairpieces than those in the 1997 production. "The wigs [then] weren't as elaborate as they were in some other periods."
The singers' own hair won't do the job, however, according to Degenfelder. A certain amount of volume that only a wig can provide is required to give the actors sufficient presence when they are onstage in the enormous space of an opera house. And that volume balances the performers' typically larger-than-life costumes, so the singers don't look like pinheads.
"The dresses in 'Der Rosen-kavalier' are large," Degenfelder said. "Smaller-scale hair won't have the same punch without the use of wigs."
To emulate the coarse-haired, unnatural-looking wigs from that period, she's using yak hair. Degenfelder, who has also been wig master for the Seattle Repertory Theatre for 20-plus years and is currently wig master for Pacific Northwest Ballet, either modifies existing hairpieces or builds new wigs from scratch to fit the size of the performers' heads and the needs of each show. "It takes 40 to 80 hours to hand tie a whole wig."
For this year's Seattle Rep production of "Restoration Comedy," by Amy Freed, Degenfelder devised a towering hairpiece built from an estimated six to seven wigs. She used synthetic hair instead of human "because the actor wouldn't have been able to carry the weight of that much human hair."
Besides adjusting the hair design from the 1997 "Der Rosenkavalier," Degenfelder is revisiting the makeup. "Another thing that goes along with the small scale of the wigs is the makeup, very subtle, no color, no big lips, not a lot of rouge."
Each night, a crew of approximately 15 hair and makeup artists will prepare the singers, including the chorus, and make changes during the performance. One of the hairdressers will even be on stage as a maid to redo the Marschallin's hair as she dresses.
"Preparation takes about 7 to 10 minutes per chorus member and half an hour to 40 minutes for a principal, plus two extra minutes per wig," Degenfelder said.
Degenfelder, whose hair and makeup handiwork can be seen at numerous Pacific Northwest theaters from ACT to Intiman, said one rule always holds true for her craft.
"It's all about the singing and acting, not anything I put on the performers, as long as the hair stays on their heads and they're comfortable."
Seattle Opera's "Der Rosenkavalier," plays at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St., from Saturday, Aug. 5-Saturday, Aug. 26. Prices: $49-135, although student and senior rush tickets are available on the day of the performance. Tickets/information: 389-7676, seattleopera.org
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