Upsight

yes! YES! I have it!

I've more or less decided how I want the Queen and her Ladies to appear (in The Magic Flute), but I was stuck on ideas for the Temple of Wisdom - which was a problem, because we spend most of the opera there.

I had thought about making the Temple guys sort of like Buddhist monks, or sort of like Lucas's Jedi, or sort of like Gandhi. But this morning, after getting far too little sleep because I'd stayed up too late reading Neal Stephenson's Anathem, I had an IDEA.

If you've read Anathem, you probably already know what I'm about to say.

( ...but if you haven't, there are spoilers below )

Finally, finally I have it. This is going to rock.

Now, has anyone got any clue how to build a stage version of a huge observatory-type telescope? Or an armillary sphere? I think I'm going to need both...

Upsight

yes! YES! I have it!

I've more or less decided how I want the Queen and her Ladies to appear (in The Magic Flute), but I was stuck on ideas for the Temple of Wisdom - which was a problem, because we spend most of the opera there.

I had thought about making the Temple guys sort of like Buddhist monks, or sort of like Lucas's Jedi, or sort of like Gandhi. But this morning, after getting far too little sleep because I'd stayed up too late reading Neal Stephenson's Anathem, I had an IDEA.

If you've read Anathem, you probably already know what I'm about to say.

( ...but if you haven't, there are spoilers below )

Finally, finally I have it. This is going to rock.

Now, has anyone got any clue how to build a stage version of a huge observatory-type telescope? Or an armillary sphere? I think I'm going to need both...