Painting Wagnerian Skies

Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo (1871–1949), the inventor of the Fortuny dome and a spectacular system of theatre lighting, claimed “It is as a painter that I speak of light.” After attending performances at Bayreuth, Fortuny became a life-long avid Wagnerian. Though initially trained as a painter, Fortuny turned his attention to reforming scenography to produce the all-encompassing (but technically impossible at the time) illusions prescribed by Wagner’s stage directions. Fortuny’s aim was to bring them to fruition. A review of the debut of Fortuny’s system for Toscanini’s 1900 Tristan und Isoldementions a Bayreuth fanatic proclaiming, “Wagner would have been happy to be understood so thoroughly!” This same review describes the spectacle of modulating color Fortuny achieved: “Nothing can communicate the exquisite sensation. The fading of the dying day on the sea, nor the effect of the setting sun striking the tower wall in the third act: it is first a yellow light, dry, and irate, then the tone becomes golden, goes to ardent red, expires in a purple attenuated more and more by a poignant melancholy.” Fortuny considered these electric skies that transform in color and intensity in perfect synchronisation with the musical score an extension of his painting practice and the evolution of painted stage décor. As he explained: painting with the ephemeral medium of light “permits the artist to mix his colors on stage, to paint in the theatre as if with a palette.” This paper will demonstrate how Fortuny’s painterly approach to light shaped Wagnerian scenography.