He spots Medora, a young Greek woman who has been captured by the slave trader Lankendem, and falls instantly in love, just as she and her friend Gulnare are sold to Seyd, pasha of the Isle of Cos. (A very pretty spot, if we are to believe the backdrops by Irina Tibilova, who also designed the brightly exotic costumes, which allow the women to show a lot of well-toned tummies).
As the first section of the work begins, we see projected video images of the young man against the bare backdrop (by the set designers Jean Kalman and Tom Pye).
Their tight unitards and the backdrop, both by Isaac Mizrahi, restyle military camouflage in sherbert-shaded oranges, pinks and yellows.
Competitors at Lord's will shoot against the backdrop provided by the late-Victorian Pavilion, perhaps the most famous building on any cricket ground.
Instead, the weather was balmy, and the skies were an intense blue, a shade similar to the backdrop created by the ballet's scenic and costume designer Jérôme Kaplan to evoke the fierce Barcelona light.
The same Palladian circular temple stays at the center of the backdrop, flanked by the same Claude Lorrain-like harbor views in Act I and a hundred years later in Act III.
Mrs Clinton has plenty of baggage; Mr Obama could join the long list of potential superstars, such as Howard Dean and Wesley Clark, who fizzled out.The great debateThe race will be about policy substance above and beyond the backdrop formed by the drama of Iraq.
Tranquil in manner yet brisk in momentum, it lays out the foreground of the story without pausing to fill in the backdrop; clue by clue, we have to work it out for ourselves.
Uplifting though the backdrop provided by the glinting brown waters of the Humber Estuary may be, Mick Newell made it clear yesterday that taking over at Grimsby Town represents a tough road back for a young manager formerly considered among the most promising in the country.
