The Empress, played by Eva Marton, sang her most famous aria lying flat on her back, on an invisible platform suspended twenty feet above the stage floor while the film which brought the Empress to earth hurled viewers down a spiral staircase past smoke-spewing factory chimneys into the smog-filled streets and overcrowded living conditions. The Dryer's grotto appeared as a long transparent column of water up which the bodies of drowned men floated. In one scene, Barak's house was suddenly transformed into a golden palace. In another, into a boat sailing under a star-filled sky, and in another, a storm broke the house in two and sent its inhabitants hurtling into the air.
from MUSICAL AMERICA: As a compelling example of lyric theater this production was a standout. It moved with the speed of light, and the projections and film covered every surface imaginable, on scrims, on an airborne pyramid, on geometric shapes, through transparent plastic. The images ranged from a glowering, moving face of Keikobad, the ruler of the spiritual kingdom, through an impressionist forest with shimmering reflections of the Falcon's wings, to an Industrial Revolution of belching chimneys and gloomy factories surrounding Barak's earthly shanty. The harem vision resembled a sunlit Monet facade. The supernatural storm swirled the performers on turntables, then yanked them aloft on flying rigs and held them suspended in midair. The grotto scene divided the darkened stage with a transparent tubular shaft of light through which inanimate bodies rose from beneath the stage to the flies. It was a virtuoso optical feat which added dimension to the score without inundating it in the customary scenic elaboration.
