How the Met’s Prop-Shop Magic Makes Trucks Move onstage

Good morning. It’s Monday. We’ll find out what drives the trucks onstage in the Metropolitan Opera’s “Carmen.” We’re also getting details on subway service on lines 1, 2 and 3 following last week’s derailment on the Upper West Side.

Three pickup trucks and a tractor-trailer drive across the stage in the Metropolitan Opera’s new, modern production of ‘Carmen’.

They’re not traditional opera props — tables, chairs, chalices, swords, maybe a horse for “Aida” — and they don’t look under the hood. Their engines have been taken out. You wouldn’t want the cast and chorus smelling exhaust backstage while the trucks and a little red sports car wait to roll out of the wings.

As they do, their wheels spin as the cast sings and dances in the semi and in the pickups — a 1980 Chevrolet, a 1978 Chevy and a Ford that Met technical director Gabrielle Heerschap said is ” maybe from the 90’s. .” The red car is a Jaguar, for Don José, whose obsession with Carmen turns murderous.

The Met has had vehicles on stage before, including in recent versions of ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ and ‘Rigoletto’. But those vehicles usually remained in fixed positions. Michael Levine, the set designer for “Carmen,” wanted the vehicles to move and said he had “naively” assumed they could be equipped with small electric motors for their travel back and forth across the stage.

Instead, the Met chose to power them with a computer-controlled system of wires – unseen, under the stage. The vehicles in ‘Carmen’ are connected to the wires by poles known in Met stage terminology as ‘blades’.

So the rubber never makes it onto the stage in ‘Carmen’. The tractor-trailer tires aren’t even rubber. The ones on the pickup trucks do, but they are filled with foam, not air, and they don’t turn. The hubcaps are, because they are separated from the tires.

Not only did the trucks have to move, but they also had to transport cast members – a dozen or so in the back of each pickup. “This is a lot of weight,” Heerschap said.

She meant that literally: give or take a hundred pounds or so. “We weren’t sure we could fit that many people until we tried it on stage,” Levine said.

For the semi there is one cabin and two trailers. The cab and one trailer stand upright in one operation. Later, after a scene change, we see the cabin and the other trailer lying on their sides. According to Heerschap, it takes about five minutes once the curtain is down to move the upright trailer from the stage, disconnect it from the cabin, fold the cabin onto the ground and place it in front of the second trailer.

Both trailers were made in the Met’s workshop. Carpenters placed a curtain on one side and footlights on the floor in the upright side.

“It’s like a little stage unto itself, its own little vaudeville stage,” complete with a secret door and a hidden staircase, Levine said. The dancers at the beginning of an act in the trailer need a way out when choristers arrive to take their places.

As for the pickup trucks, he wanted a weathered look. “I wanted them all to be a bit vintage, so they would look like trucks that have been on the road for a long time,” says Levine. “Older and more beat up.”

A prop shop did the opposite of the usual car body magic. Also on Levine’s orders, the pickups received two-tone paint jobs.

“I wanted a certain level of roughness, but also a bit of warmth” in the color scheme, he said. “I wanted to feel like these were trucks that you might see in a rougher, more desolate place. I wanted a feeling.”

Still no snowmen

It’s been almost 700 days since at least an inch of snow fell in a single day in Central Park. The National Weather Service said only 0.2 inches of snow fell there over the weekend, in contrast to places in New Jersey and New York state where the first major storm of the winter brought about an inch or so of snow.

The storm followed its predicted path, staying north and west of New York City. a list of storm totals compiled by the Weather Service showed only two places in New York with accumulations of more than a foot. Both were in Orange County: Port Jervis, with 13.1 inches, and Unionville, with 12.4 inches. Topping the New Jersey list were Blairstown and Wantage Township, in northern New Jersey, each with 11.5 inches.

In the city, the Sanitation Department said so every street was salted while Saturday gave way to Sunday. But the plows remained unused. Only after five centimeters of snow has fallen does the Sanitation Department give the order to begin clearing the streets.

Governor Kathy Hochul said she was well aware that many people in New York City had hoped they would finally have the raw materials for snowmen this weekend. “Luckily for them, or unfortunately for them, depending on your perspective,” she said at a news briefing, “they’re going to have to wait a little longer.”

Precipitation is forecast for tomorrow, but there is little chance of the snowstorm being broken. The forecast is for another rainy day, at least in the city, with a risk of flash flooding.

Weather

It will be a sunny day in the mid 40s, with temperatures dropping into the low 30s at night.

ALTERNATE PARKING

In effect until January 15 (Martin Luther King’s birthday).

The latest New York news

Service on Metro Lines 1, 2 and 3 was fully restored Sunday, more than 60 hours after a collision between two trains injured 26 people, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said.

The collision occurred Thursday afternoon near West 96th Street in Manhattan. This involved a train with approximately 300 passengers and a train that was taken out of service at 79th Street. MTA crews began repairs shortly after firefighters evacuated passengers, but service disruptions continued into the weekend as temperatures dropped and snow showers gave way to slushy rain.

The transportation agency and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash. Human error appears to have caused the collision, but it was not immediately clear who was at fault, according to three transit officials with knowledge of the investigation.

Officials said the crew of the out-of-service train continued to move slowly forward against a red light near 96th Street, where the train carrying the 300 passengers had the green light to go around it on the express track and then back to the local track. The leader of a transit workers union suggested a regulator’s decision had precipitated the crash.

METROPOLITAN diary

Reliable ride

Dear Diary:

The year was 1974. I was 25 and taking my first business trip to New York with the president of the company where I worked.

It was a big deal in my embryonic career, and I talked about it on the cab ride to the John Street office. The driver was a family man from Queens with daughters about my age. He asked when I was flying back.

Within a week I told him.

He offered to pick me up and take me back to Kennedy Airport.

The customer visit went well, and when it was time to leave for the airport, the company president said he would arrange a car service to take me there.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” I said, explaining the arrangement I had made with the taxi driver.

The company director dismissed me as naive and instructed his secretary to call a car. A few minutes later she came back surprised.

“There’s a Mr. Papadopoulos in the lobby looking for Ms. Lacey to take her to the airport?” she said.

I smiled and pretended not to notice the surprised look on the big man’s face.

“I’m sure my driver will want to hear about my trip,” I said, thanking the secretary as I threw my coat over one arm and grabbed my shiny new suitcase. “And I don’t want to disappoint him.”

—Charlene Lacey

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send your entries here And read more Metropolitan Diary here.

Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. – JB

PS Here is today’s Mini crossword And Game competition. You can find all our puzzles here.