stage designer
Scenic design (also known as scenography, stage design, or set design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but in recent years, are mostly trai ...
, sculptor and architect.
He was an artistic director, production designer and coauthor of the script for the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014.
Early life and education
Tsypin was born in Kazgorodok,
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
(former
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
), where his parents were in internal exile after being released from
GULAG
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
as political prisoners. He studied architecture in Moscow and theater design at
NYU
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
in New York.
Career
Tsypin has worked for many years with renowned directors and composers, such as
Julie Taymor
Julie Taymor (born December 15, 1952) is an American director and writer of theater, opera and film. Her stage adaptation of ''The Lion King'' debuted in 1997, and received eleven Tony Award nominations, with Taymor receiving Tony Awards for Best ...
,
Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars (born September 27, 1957) is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays. Sellars is professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where ...
,
Francesca Zambello
Francesca Zambello (born August 24, 1956) is an American opera and theatre director. She serves as director of Glimmerglass Festival and the Washington National Opera.
Early life and education
Born in New York City, Zambello lived in Europe whe ...
,
Pierre Audi
Pierre Audi (born 1957 in Beirut, Lebanon) is a French-Lebanese theatre director and artistic director.
Early life
Audi is the son of the Lebanese banker Raymond Audi and Andrée Michel Fattal, the eldest of three children.Jurgen Flimm, Philip Glass,
John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of t ...
,
Kaija Saariaho
Kaija Anneli Saariaho (; ; born 14 October 1952) is a Finnish composer based in Paris, France. During the course of her career, Saariaho has received commissions from the Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet and from IRCAM for the Ensemble Inte ...
and
Andrey Konchalovsky
Andrei Sergeyevich Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky (russian: link=no, Андрей Сергеевич Михалков-Кончаловский; born 20 August 1937) is a Russian filmmaker. He has worked in Soviet, Hollywood, and contemporary Russian ...
.
He has won many awards, including the International Competition of "New and Spontaneous Ideas for the Theater for Future Generations" at
Georges Pompidou Center
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
in Paris.
His designs for opera have been produced all over the world, including Salzburg Festival, Opera de Bastille in Paris, Covent Garden in London, La Scala in Milan, Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg, Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Tsypin has worked in all major theaters in the United States, as well as in film and television.
His sculpture received its first one-man gallery show in 1991 at the Twining Gallery in New York. He created the Planet Earth Gallery, one of the Millennium Projects in England: a major installation of moving architectural elements, videos and 200 sculptures.
Tsypin was chosen to exhibit his work at the
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
in 2002. His monograph, ''GEORGE TSYPIN OPERA FACTORY: Building in the Black Void'', was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2005.
Tsypin's
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
debut as a set designer for a musical was Disney Theatrical's production of ''
The Little Mermaid
"The Little Mermaid" ( da, Den lille havfrue) is a literary fairy tale written by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. The story follows the journey of a young mermaid who is willing to give up her life in the sea as a mermaid to gain a ...
'', at the
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, originally the Globe Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 205 West 46th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1910, the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre was designed by Carrère and Hasti ...
. He designed the set for the new musical '' Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark'' for which he won Outer Critics Award and received Tony Award nomination.
He designed the SeaGlass Carousel for
Battery Park
The Battery, formerly known as Battery Park, is a public park located at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City facing New York Harbor. It is bounded by Battery Place on the north, State Street on the east, New York Harbor to ...
next to the
World Trade Center site
The World Trade Center site, often referred to as "Ground Zero" or "the Pile" immediately after the September 11 attacks, is a 14.6-acre (5.9 ha) area in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The site is bounded by Vesey Street to the north ...
.
Family
George lives in New York with his wife Galina. He has two daughters, Allie, a film director, and Sonja, a cinematographer.
Selected publications
*Sculpting Space in the Theater: Conversations with the top set, light and costume designers - Paperback (Oct. 12, 2006) by Babak Ebrahimian
* George Tsypin Opera Factory: Invisible City, Princeton Architectural Press, 2016
*''GEORGE TSYPIN OPERA FACTORY: Building in the Black Void" Princeton Architectural Press, 2005.
*Inside George Tsypin Opera Factory by Lucy Lu, Peking, 2012.
*Into the Abiss: Essays on Scenography by Arnold Aronson, University of Michigan Press, 2005
*Tony Davis, ''Stage Design'', RotoVision, 2001
*Ronn Smith, ''American Set Design 2'', pp. 159–173, Theatre Communications Group Inc, 1991 "George Tsypin" Polyhymnion