Within the Metropolitan Opera’s new manufacturing of “El Niño,” which reimagines the story of Jesus’ start and early childhood, there are singing and dancing Virgin Marys, Marys of the land and sea; there’s an Indigenous Mary, a Tropical Mary, a Golden Mary.
For the costume designer Montana Levi Blanco, differentiating this flock of Virgins was only one problem in bringing to life this new imaginative and prescient of the composer John Adams and the director Peter Sellars’s eclectic Y2K-era oratorio, which pulls simply as liberally from Latin American poetry and mystic hymns because it does from the New Testomony. Within the director Lileana Blain-Cruz’s imaginative and prescient, the motion takes place throughout a number of “planes.” It may very well be rather a lot to soak up.
Fortunately for Mr. Levi Blanco, 39, he has developed one thing of a shorthand whereas working with Ms. Blain-Cruz, whom he has identified since he was an M.F.A. scholar on the Yale Faculty of Drama. The pair have collaborated a number of instances, together with on “The Pores and skin of Our Tooth,” for which Mr. Levi Blanco gained a Tony Award in 2022.
Within the case of “El Niño,” painterly surroundings by the set designer Adam Rigg evokes the pure surroundings. And since the refrain is onstage for a lot of the efficiency, the query grew to become, What to do with these 5 dozen singers? The answer: Flip them into flora.
Mr. Levi Blanco developed 4 variations of the choral costume, all in the identical shade of avocado inexperienced, that may very well be tailored to particular person refrain members. If a singer needed lengthy sleeves or a crop high, say, or pants as a substitute of a skirt, the costumes may simply be tweaked.
“Every one is a leaf,” he mentioned of the variation. “Every leaf is completely different.”
“El Niño” was first carried out in Paris in 2000. However Ms. Blain-Cruz’s “El Niño,” in all probability essentially the most absolutely realized manufacturing of the work ever staged (most earlier variations have had minimal set design), takes a extra international view. Based on Mr. Levi Blanco, the inventive staff discovered inspiration within the tales — and clothes — of migrants from not solely Central and South America, but in addition Cambodia, Indonesia and Congo.
The costume for the singer whom this manufacturing calls Mary of the Land (the soprano Julia Bullock), one among its two singing Marys, attracts on what the designer described as a unity in silhouette that exists in Indigenous cultures the world over. “There’s often a skirt, a shirt after which some form of masking that can be utilized in a whole lot of methods,” Mr. Levi Blanco mentioned. That may be a scarf within the Caribbean, a shawl in Southeast Asia or a serape in Mexico, however the primary components are the identical.
“I simply needed to honor, form of, this outdated however very acquainted silhouette,” he mentioned.
Land Mary’s visible counterpart, Mary of the Sea (the mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges), will likely be simply distinguished from the teal- and blue-clad “sea migrants” she seems with by means of an surprising palette. In her greenish-yellow skirt and matching floral bodice, Mr. Levi Blanco mentioned, “we’ll at all times realize it’s her.”
Three extra Marys, portrayed by dancers quite than singers, occupy what the present calls the enduring airplane. These extra ethereal Marys have extra elaborate costumes than their singing counterparts — supersize silhouettes, ornate headdresses, intricate detailing — that extra straight evoke non secular iconography.
Based on Mr. Levi Blanco, a vital a part of this manufacturing was taking ladies who aren’t usually mirrored in Christian lore in any respect and placing them entrance and heart.
“I believe it was inevitable that our interpretation of ‘El Niño’ would additionally embrace individuals who appear to be us,” mentioned the designer, who’s half Black and half Mexican.
Together with her sunburst headpiece and shimmering robe, Golden Mary might be essentially the most conventional of the Marys whom audiences will encounter onstage, suggesting Catholic statuary of the Spanish Golden Age. Mr. Levi Blanco suspects that Tropical Mary, along with her iridescent scarf and ropes of pearls, may need been most significant for Ms. Blain-Cruz, who’s of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent. “That was a Mary that she grew up with,” he mentioned. However for him, Indigenous Mary had the best resonance.
Rising up evangelical Christian in New Mexico, Mr. Levi Blanco had an up-close view of the way in which that Christianity may merge with Native American and Mexican cultures — not simply non secular traditions, but in addition aesthetic ones.
Blanketed in floral motifs of beads and sequins, Indigenous Mary is “all about nature,” the designer mentioned. Even her oversize lace crown, which was initially impressed by conventional Oaxacan headdresses, ultimately got here to remind Mr. Levi Blanco extra of a shell. A lustrous abalone end accomplished the look.
Mr. Levi Blanco mentioned that his grandmother Stella, who ran a enterprise making lampshades and was half Yaqui Indian, was an vital template for Indigenous Mary. Though she died as “El Niño” was coming collectively, her grandson felt her presence all through the manufacturing. “Fringe, beads, all these items that I grew up enjoying with in her workshop, remains to be an lively each day a part of my life,” Mr. Levi Blanco mentioned.
“She was my Indigenous Mary, you recognize?” he added.
