23/04/2022
By binternet
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Meeting with Thibaut Welchlin, costume designer at the Opéra National du Rhin<

It is in the Grenier d'Abondance, a stone's throw from Place Broglie, that the workshops for making costumes for the Opéra National du Rhin (ONR) are located. Here, scissors, needles and fabrics move between the fingers of the cutters, dressmakers and other shoemakers to give birth to the clothes of light of the artists who will go on stage.

At the entrance to the corridor, from his soberly decorated office, Thibaut Welchlin keeps an eye on the schedule of upcoming shows. He is the head costumer of the ONR and oversees this small anthill. Its role is above all to organize the material and human resources of the workshops. With one objective: to make it possible to create the costumes for the various artistic projects presented at the ONR.

“Being a costume designer means making it possible to carry out projects from the point of view of costumes. It is to compare the project of an artistic team and the means that the ONR can offer. It also means supporting this team in technical choices and sometimes providing artistic advice, if desired”, sums up Thibaut Welchlin.

With each new show, a new story is written in these workshops located between the rehearsal room and that of the choirs. “One year before the date of the scheduled premiere, the entire artistic team submits a model for the decor, the costumes and the staging intentions, explains Thibaut Welchlin. It can take several forms. It can be drawings, with very specific things or, on the contrary, great creative gestures, but it can also be images of inspiration, photos, a list… ”

The model, generally presented in the form of a workbook, thus allows the artistic team to express its ideas, its desires and its inspirations, to make them known to Thibaut Welchlin and his colleagues.

Collect, buy or create

It is from there that the head costume designer develops a strategy to make this initial idea concrete. It starts with deciding if the costumes should be created in the workshop or if they can be bought or found in the ONR store.

“We have a costume store with 90,000 costume pieces, former ONR productions or productions currently in operation, explains Thibaut Welchlin. So we have to see what we have, is it adaptable to new production, how can we transform them and make them available?” Some pieces are also sometimes purchased off-the-shelf, for example some clothes dating from the 80s and found in second-hand clothes. At this moment, the head costume designer balances the time, personnel and financial resources available to the ONR. Is it better to buy, collect or create?

And for creation, it happens on the other side of Thibaut Welchlin's office door. Around large tables, many are busy at the end of the December day. Once the fabrics have been selected, according to artistic but also technical needs, the cutters begin to cut the costumes.

Rencontre avec Thibaut Welchlin, chef costumier de l’Opéra National du Rhin

In a small room away, Véronique Christmann, workshop manager and assistant to Thibaut Welchlin, is about to cut the pieces of the costume that will soon be worn by a soloist. She draws with chalk and meticulously on the fabric carefully chosen by the team. “We had to find a fabric in the spirit of the 80s, just with the times, which corresponds to the colors and graphics that the costume designer had in mind, all in contrast with other fabrics”, explains Thibaut Welchlin.

Forty hours for a tailor

A few centimeters from the table, a model puts on a beige canvas half-coat. “When it's a somewhat specific costume, we first cut it in a canvas, a fairly ordinary and inexpensive fabric, to check the volume on a mannequin to the artist's measurements, before cutting in the real fabric. ”, specifies Thibaut Welchlin.

The future coat is not intended for the same show as the suit. “In the same day I can be on the costumes of three or four different works. Here there are costumes for different shows”, explains Véronique, pointing to the rack along the wall. Véronique thus goes from one costume to another, always ready to inform the dressmakers and seamstresses of the workshop and systematically keeping an eye on the program of shows.

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In the large room of the workshop, the seamstresses still present while the sun has been hidden for a while, work on the assembly, the picotage or the sewing of the pieces cut a little earlier. Emilie, a trainee in the workshop, is busy picking a suit also intended for a soloist. A costume that requires about forty hours of work.

“There are two major currents in the workshops, explains Thibaut Welchlin. There is the blurred workshop, for the ladies where rather fluid materials are used. Then there is the tailoring part, where we will use more robust materials. And there are more specialized people for one or the other.”

Costumes at the service of the work

16 people work here on a permanent basis but, during periods with many broadcasts and therefore workshop work, the workforce can double. It is then intermittent workers who come to reinforce the ranks. This is the case of Margaux, crossed in the tissue library, on the other side of the corridor with walls covered with images of inspiration.

Margaux, who is working on cutting the fringes of a bolero, is from Strasbourg and has been coming back to work regularly at the ONR for 4 years. “It's practical to have an opera that is hiring, in the provinces, there aren't that many. In Alsace, we are lucky”, she testifies.

The tissue library is not just a place of storage. It is right here, around the high table installed in the middle of the shelves crushed under the rolls of fabric, that Thibaut Welchlin often organizes his meetings with the artistic teams. Around this table, the main orientations are decided at the start of the project. The artistic teams come up with ideas, those of the ONR bring a technical perspective and expertise built up by years of experience. Because you don't create a costume like you create a piece of clothing.

“For costume design, it's not the same entry point as in fashion. In fashion, you create clothing for clothing's sake, whereas the stage costume is work clothing for an artist who will have to give the best of his art on stage”, specifies Thibaut Welchlin. And to specify: “You cannot, for example, make a tail coat with a cutting method inherited from the 1950s. It must be stretchy. You also have to think about the rapid changes that artists have to make. In opera it is the music that determines everything, times of change are inalienable. The costume must serve the performers and the staging of the work.”

“A small miracle”

Finally, it is sometimes necessary for costumes to go through the finishing workshop box. Here the costumes begin to come to life. It can be patina to give life to the costume or even dyeing, adding patterns or accessories. So many elements that will give the costumes their particular characteristics and their final appearance.

All that remains is to try on the costumes, adjust them, then put them to the test during the so-called “piano dress rehearsal” before letting the costumes live their life on the stage.

“It is in itself, it is each time a small miracle which is accomplished on the day of the general piano, comments Thibaut Welchlin. It is the result of all the forces brought into play: the talents involved in cutting, sewing, finishing, dyeing, the work of the bootmaker, purchases, coordination, the work of the dressers . It's extraordinary to have managed to unite the whole team around an idea brought by someone and to see all this work in the service of the work”, summarizes Thibaut Welchlin.

This cycle of creation is the sustained rhythm of the ONR workshops. And it starts again and again. “There are at least 15 different productions in a season. They are spread over ten months”, observes Thibaut Welchlin. Thus every two to three weeks, a new model arrives on the desk of the head costume designer, starting a new story within the workshops.

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To discover the costumes, during the performances of Carmen, it's happening at the Filature de Mulhouse on January 7 and 9, 2022More information

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*Article supported but not reviewed by the ONR