Peter Farmer

Monday 2nd October 2006
Church of Scotland Hall,
Crown Court, W.C.2

We were delighted to welcome as our guest Mr Peter Farmer, the distinguished stage designer who has a world wide reputation for his work in the theatre and is also a successful painter who has had one man exhibitions. Not only had Mr Farmer agreed to speak to us about his career, but he also brought a along a portfolio of his beautiful designs which we had the privilege of looking at after the meeting. The interviewer was Robin Key, Vice Chairman.

Peter began by telling us about his work on the re-interpretation of the Oliver Messel designs for the revival of "The Sleeping Beauty". He had already re-created the Ironside brothers' designs for "Sylvia" and paid tribute to their skill as designers. They had a definite style and he considered the revival a great success and" enjoyed working on this ballet. However, Oliver Messel was a different case as he had not done many ballets. His costumes were over-elaborate and not suitable for modem revival, though his sets were very beautiful, especially the Palace scenes. (He passed round some photographs of the original Messel costumes.) Peter explained how he toned down the colours in the costumes so they blended and were in harmony with each other and the scenery. Peter had also designed the MacMillan production of "The Sleeping Beauty" for the Royal Ballet, and has designed many productions of this ballet for different companies. He particularly enjoyed working on the recent production for English National Ballet, which was the revival of the MacMillan and Georgiadis American Ballet Theatre production.

Peter then told us about his early days and how he became a theatrical designer. He was born in Luton and went to a technical college where he did a secretarial course and got a job in Welwyn Garden City Stores to train as a buyer. However, he was transferred to the display department and learnt to design window displays and liked this so much that he decided to get a diploma to qualify for employment. He enrolled at Luton Art School, which was an old fashioned academic art school, where he got a thorough technical grounding. He was determined to get to London and went to Central School to study design for the theatre, where he got a diploma with distinction. As is the case with, all young people looking for a start to their careers, he did many different jobs to keep solvent, and eventualIy was employed by the Redfern Gallery who agreed to give him a small exhibition. He got the chance to illustrate a book for H.E.Bates and the gallery arranged to postpone his exhibition until the book was ready and gave him a job in the meantime, so he had the opportunity to learn about the aft gallery business.

During these years he learned practical things, such as making theatrical props, and designed plays. He shared a flat with some dancers, including Norman MacDowell, who went on to form London City Ballet. He was asked to design a ballet for this company, which was a success and led to an invitation from Joyce Graeme and David Ellis to design "Giselle" for Ballet Rambert, while they were still a classical company. Other work followed, including Peter Wright's "Giselle" at Stuttgart, and that was the beginning of his classical ballet design career, not only in the UK but for Continental companies.

At this stage we had a short interval while some of Peter's beautiful and atmospheric designs and projects for ballets were passed around the audience, as he commented on the pictures and told us about his method of work and how he creates designs for a particular ballet.

Peter has designed for many companies in the USA and told us about his work for Ben Stevenson in Houston and for the Harkness Ballet. He designed "The Sleeping Beauty" for Washington, which opened in Washington with Margot Fonteyn as Aurora. He was asked to design the Kirov production of "Manon", which many of us saw when the Kirov came to the Royal Opera House some years pack, and told us how impressed he was by the very high standard of the back stage artists and stage technicians at the Maryinsky.

When asked about other stage designers, Peter said he particularly admired the Clavé designs for Ronald Petit's ,"Carmen", and then told us that the music inspires him by suggesting appropriate colours for the design; he considers the music to be the impetus for the creation of the design. Peter commented on the method of training for theatre designers today when the theatre is dominated by technicians, as opposed to designers with drawing and design skills which are no longer taught in colleges. The theatre is changing in all its aspects with technical production and startling scenic effects dominating, in an attempt to achieve something that is better shown in a film. The days of straight plays with a star in the lead appear to be over. He has never been asked to design an opera and although he enjoys it, he is definitely not a Handel fan - especially of operas lasting four hours! He has kept his designs for productions for many years back and in answer to a question, said he would be happy to have an exhibition of his work. We all hope this can be arranged.

We enjoyed listening to Peter's views on private galleries and their forbidding aspect for the general public. He reminded us that galleries are only shops in the business of selling things, and we should not let ourselves be intimidated.

We all look forward to seeing an exhibition of Peter's work in the not too distant future. We were very grateful for the opportunity to study the wonderful work from his portfolio and the evening ended with more looking at pictures and the presentation of a gift from the members, with many thanks for a wonderful evening.