{"id":14462,"date":"2015-04-20T09:27:44","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T13:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/news\/article.php?ArticleID=14462"},"modified":"2015-04-20T09:27:44","modified_gmt":"2015-04-20T13:27:44","slug":"14462_professor-is-international-opera-awards-designer-of-the-year-finalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/2015\/04\/20\/14462_professor-is-international-opera-awards-designer-of-the-year-finalist\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor is International Opera Awards Designer of the Year Finalist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>Erhard Rom, associate professor of design in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Montclair State University, has designed stage sets for nearly 200 productions around the world. This year, he is a finalist in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.operaawards.org\/\">2015 International Opera Awards<\/a>\u2019 Designer of the Year category. He plans to attend the awards ceremony at London\u2019s Savoy Theatre on April 26. <br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--> <\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI\u2019m greatly looking forward to that,\u201d Rom says. \u201cThe nomination is for all of my design work over the past year. I am truly and deeply honored to have been included on the list of only six designers in the world. The other designers are artists whom I greatly admire.\u201d <br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cErhard Rom is among the finest scene designers in the world,\u201d says Montclair State College of the Arts Dean Daniel Gurskis. \u201cAt the same time, he loves being in the classroom and teaching scene design students at Montclair State. That combination of artistic accomplishment and commitment to our students is something we see throughout the faculty of the College of the Arts. It\u2019s what makes the student experience here so vibrant and transformative.\u201d <br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Rom\u2019s set designs both complement and underscore each opera\u2019s story. \u201cDesigning a space for storytelling involves a deep understanding of the text as well as the music in opera,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt is always important to me that we find the most compelling context or setting for a piece, so that we can clearly reveal the meaning of that piece to a contemporary audience and make it resonate in a powerful manner.\u201d <br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>His designs evoke more than a time or a place. \u201cI will typically strip away extraneous or decorative information in favor of strong, clear dramaturgical ideas that connect the environment directly with the text and subtext of the story the performers are telling.\u201d <br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Staging an opera is a complicated collaborative process, according to Rom. \u201cDirectors and designers work together to shape a unique theatrical experience,\u201d he notes. \u201cI greatly enjoy this collaborative process because the influences we have upon each other often lead to surprising results.\u201d <br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The annual International Opera Awards promote and celebrate excellence in opera and provide funding through the Opera Awards Foundation for the operatic community. <br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>While this is the first year that Rom has been nominated for an International Opera Award, his design for the opera <em>Silent Night<\/em>, presented in Wexford, Ireland, recently received the Audience Choice Award and Best Opera Production of 2014 at the 2015 Irish Times Theatre Awards Ceremony. His work will also be included in this year\u2019s Prague Quadrennial International Design Exhibition. <br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am absolutely thrilled to have been included as a finalist for the International Opera Designer of the Year award,\u201d Rom says. \u201cThis is something I never expected would happen, so I am continuing to pinch myself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Erhard Rom in the Department of Theatre and Dance to attend awards ceremony in London <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":206655,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-190_theatre-dance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}