Supporting British Industry & Craftsmanship
The Royal Opera House has a labyrinth of workshops where props and costumes are made in-house in Covent Garden, in a network of spaces that include metal and carpentry workshops, a fibreglass room, a walk-in spray room, a dye workshop, a millinery studio and a series of sewing rooms.
In the heart of the London's Covent Garden, behind this historic theatre lies a warren of workspaces - 113,020 square feet of them. Alongside the rehearsal studios, a costume department spans four floors and workshops where wigs, hats, footwear costumes, props, jewellery, weaponry and theatrical models are made by a huge team of skilled workers. Scenery construction and painting takes place in the ROH's production facility in Thurrock, Essex.
These specialist artisans work on average on 290 opera and ballet performances across thirty productions a year. The building is complex, with lifts to different wings and floors colour-coded to help with navigation. Architecture firm Stanton Williams was responsible for the ROH's most recent transformation, completed in 2018, with the result that visitors can now see into some of the workshops through internal windows.
"I have enjoyed performances at the Royal Opera House and always enjoyed visiting their shop and cafe but hadn't realised the scale of the making in-house. It seemed improbable that the theatre could host all of these artisans in the centre of Covent Garden, but every nook and cranny of the famous building is utilised and last minute tweaks and repairs can be made when the makers are in the same building. It was a joy to visit them all and see the breadth of skills on hand - I loved seeing the dye room where leotards were being dyed to match the exact shade of the actor's skin." Carmel King photographed the Royal Opera House in November 2021 for Made in London.
