Costume Designers Find Creative Solutions | Opera America Magazine

Vita Tzykun’s costume design for the Dragonfly in The Cunning Little Vixen, as seen onstage this summer at Des Moines Metro Opera (image: Vita Tzykun)

Article Published: 02 Oct 2025

Wardrobe Change: Opera's costume designers find creative solutions to industry challenges

By Hannah Edgar

In June, New York-based costume designer Vita Tzykun was deep into tech week for The Cunning Little Vixen at Des Moines Metro Opera. She sent me a photo to prove it: soprano Léa Nayak trying on her costume, craning her neck to admire its fanned thicket of cerulean feathers. Later, when Tzykun and I connected, she revealed the costume’s eye-popping backstory: The intricate feather work had been assembled in, then shipped out of, war-torn Ukraine.

This article was published in the Fall 2025 issue of Opera America Magazine.