Scena delivered opera set construction for three productions in Opera Holland Park's 2026 season, the year marking thirty years since the company was founded. Our Croydon workshops built the scenery for Puccini's La fanciulla del West, Mozart's Così fan tutte and a new English-language staging of Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus, all staged at Holland Park Theatre in Kensington.
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Holland Park Theatre is a temporary structure, erected in the grounds of the Holland House ruins each summer and struck at the end of the season. That shapes every decision in the set build. Scenery arrives through a public park rather than a loading dock, fits up in a short window, and then shares one stage with the whole programme. Our three productions spanned the full season, from La fanciulla del West opening in late May through to Die Fledermaus closing in August.
Repertory uses the set in a unique way. Flats, trucks and rostra are struck and re-set between performances, sometimes overnight, so weight, joint detail and assembly sequence matter as much as the finish. An open-sided canopy in a London park adds weather and daylight to the list. We worked through construction detail with each production's design team so the sets could be turned around quickly by the venue's crew and still read properly from the house carpentry, joinery, scenic painting and finishing all handled in-house.
La fanciulla del West opened the season under director Martin Lloyd-Evans, set against a manhunt in the lawless Sierra Nevada and built around Minnie's saloon. Così fan tutte, a new production performed by Opera Holland Park's 2026 Young Artists, plays a Neapolitan comedy of disguise and misdirection. Die Fledermaus, sung in English, closed the season in August. Scena built the scenery for all three, drawing on our carpentry and joinery, CNC, and painting and spray workshops.
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