News

Trick or Treat: From the House of the Dead

27 October 2017

Spooky goings on happened behind the scenes at WNO with our make-up team transforming the cast of From the House of the Dead for their performances in Autumn 2017. Halloween was drawing nearer and we suggested that anyone who hadn’t decided on their look could base it on one of our Siberian prisoners, the stars of our excellent critically acclaimed opera 

To help you achieve this we provided a step-by-step guide on how to get the perfect From the House of the Dead look. You’ll be ready to go trick or treating in no time... 

  1. Start with a light base; you can do this by using a light foundation or a white face paint to get a pale base colour to make you look a tried and drawn as though you are a starving prisoner.
  2. Begin by using dark colours such as dark browns and black, around and underneath the eyes. You can use a dark eyeshadow for this and apply with a brush or smudge with your fingers. The important thing is to apply enough to make your eyes appear hooded. 
  3. Now for a bit of contouring. Again using a dark powder you can use this to add some wrinkles to the sides of the eyes and forehead. You can also use this to hollow out the face by darkening the underneath of your cheekbones. 
  4. If you want to add a bit of gore why not try adding a boil or two? To create the look you will need some latex to create the lump and then use a red powder (you could use a blusher or eyeshadow for this) around the lump to create the depth. 
  5. Want to test your skills? You could try adding a bald cap to your look and adding dark shading to it. (We actually create our own latex at WNO so all the bald caps you see are created by us.) With your hair, depending on length we suggest that you keep it messy by backcombing or a wet look gel to keep is looking scruffy.
  6. To add a bit of stubble, use a sponge to dab lightly along the jawline and under the nose.
  7. In the opera and in the Russian prisons of the day, prisoners would be tattooed with letters to represent their name. To recreate this use black face paint and a small brush or even cotton buds by making small dots to create a letter. 
  8. Don’t forget to keep the look going and add the dirty look to your hands, arms and chest by using a sponge or brush to create dark patches.
  9. The finishing flourish is to add some yellowing and blackened teeth. We use nicotine and black tooth enamel both by Kryolan. If you can’t get hold of this you can use black eyeliner. 

Take some inspiration from our wonderful make-up artists in these time lapses of the Chorus’s transformations.

They even managed to transform a member of our marketing department.

We hope that this inspired you to don your costumes and get into the festivities of the spooky holiday. 

Make up provided by M.A.C