Constance Hoffman: Costuming Mary Magdalene

Constance Hoffman is a costume designer who, as she says, tells stories. “My medium just happens to be costume.” The medium, however, requires a lot of research, especially for a Biblical epic, which could easily devolve into Cecil B. DeMille territory or stylization, which, in Hoffman’s view, wouldn’t fit this story.

Fortunately for the opera Mary Magdalene, Hoffman has a prodigious appetite for research and the particular challenges of the opera’s period focused those energies. Here, in these videos, the highly regarded and accomplished designer, talks about the fruits of her research, and her take on the opera’s story.