Production designer Bob Shaw received a 2022 Emmy Award for his awe-inspiring designs across The Gilded Age‘s freshman season. That win arguably emerged as one of the easiest to predict that year. In recreating the splendor of New York society near the turn of the 20th century, Shaw repurposed several historic locations across New England and seamlessly blended them with massive built sets that not only commanded the viewers’ admiration, but they also underscored the vast differences between old and new money families.
The brightness, size, and scale of the newly constructed Russell mansion immediately juxtaposed with the smaller, darker, and more austere van Rhijn house across the street. Just by looking at the luxurious sets, you immediately understood key character differences on display within the series. Shaw and his teamed turned the clock back on New York and New England itself to bring Sir Julian Fellowes’ world to life.
When season two began production, the trouble for Shaw became how to top his already celebrated work. It wasn’t a challenge entirely lost on the production designer.
“Bertha [Carrie Coon] is a social climber, and she has not reached the summit yet. She is still waging her campaign. So, the first script I received included the opera scene where she has everybody over for a dinner in order to promote the new opera, and then she has this surprise entertainment. The script just said that there were a lot of flowers,” Shaw said. “But I’ve done that. So being something of an opera buff and being familiar with what some of the classic Italian turn of the century scenery would have been, I thought that she actually would have would have found somebody to do some physical scenery for her. When they exit the dining room, they entered the great hall and saw this whole set. Mamie Fish [Ashlie Atikinson] says, ‘This isn’t possible!’ I thought that they would have felt it was possible to just put some flowers up. So, I felt that we needed to do something more.”
That’s just a taste of the expanded considerations on display in The Gilded Age season two. When writing the scripts for season one, Fellowes’ received a crash course on Newport, Rhode Island, and its role within Gilded Age society. Now, in season two, more of the central action takes place within the playground of the ultra rich. Since components of some locations in Newport were used to represent locations in New York City (for example, the Russell’s New York kitchen is physically located in The Elms in Newport), Shaw needed to employ further creative restructuring to avoid spoiling the continuity of the design.
One character introduced in season two, Susan Blaine played by Laura Benanti, lives in her deceased husband’s home frequently referred to in the script as antiquated and old fashioned. It becomes a plot point that she hires young Larry Russell (Harry Richardson) to oversee the remodeling. To fit the outdated description of Blaine’s home, Shaw and team needed to find a period-specific building that pre-dated the newer mansions of the period.
“I’ve been scouting and spending time in Newport for five years now, so I’m pretty familiar with the properties. In the 1850s, Kingscote was considered the height of elegance and the most splendid house in the area. But it’s 30 years past its prime by the time we get to our story. So there was some back and forth with Julian because he was writing certain descriptions of the house that didn’t really work for this house,” Shaw recalled. “One day, I described it as a series of little rooms. He wrote that into the script. The idea that there are all these little rooms. They kept upping the ante in Newport, and what was elegant in 1850 didn’t pass muster by the time you get to the 1880s and 90s.”
So, with Kingscote selected as the Blaine estate, Shaw needed to reflect progress on Larry’s renovations throughout the first few episodes of season two. They were allowed to establish a certain amount of exterior scaffolding at Kingscote with the rest extended through visual effects. Overall, Shaw works very closely with Douglas Purver’s visual effects team. Whenever possible, Shaw and team scout buildings, like Kingscote, that fit their requirements as closely as possible and perhaps move things around or position the right house in a better location all through visual effects work.
But one key location for season two wasn’t strictly the result of visual effects.
Throughout season two, the audience sees the new Metropolitan Opera House in various states of construction. The infamous (and very real) Opera War between the new Met and the old-monied Academy of Music serves as one of the longest narratives across season two. Of course, the Opera War further pits Bertha Russell against Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy), culminating on the opening night of both seasons in the season two finale.
And the mere fact that the inclusion of the new Metropolitan Opera House made its way into season two struck fear in Shaw’s heart.
“I knew the plot line was coming about the building of the new opera house, and before I ever got the scripts, I said to [producer] David Crockett that I was just dreading it because I knew I was going to look at the script, and it’s going to say the opera house under construction. It’s hard enough to do the opera house without doing it under construction,” Shaw laughed.
To recreate the new Metropolitan Opera House in its various stages of construction, Shaw ultimately relied on three completely separate locations. First, the outer hallways and public areas as well as the opera backstage were filmed in the Palace Theater in Albany, New York. Second, Shaw and team built the corridors outside of the opera boxes plus five opera boxes on a curved set established 20 feet in the air on a soundstage in Long Island. Third, when the Met is completed for opening night, Shaw leveraged the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.
Yet, all three locations seamlessly blend to create a single illusion thanks to the ingenuity and dedication of Shaw and his production design team.
Looks like they succeeded in upping the ante for season two.
The Gilded Age second season finale drops Sunday night at 9pm ET on HBO. All episodes of The Gilded Age stream exclusively on MAX.
