One might not associate ladders with opera, but Rossini's La scala di seta is an operatic farce centred around a ladder. The title, translated, means 'the silken ladder', which is the main prop in this romantic story of an illicit relationship between Giulia, a woman who has been promised to another, and her lover Dorvil.  Every night Dorvil visits Giulia by climbing a ladder made of silk into her room. The action of the opera takes place in the bedroom and the ascent of the ladder each night is crucial to the plot, so when the piece was played at the Linbury Studio in The Royal Opera House, London, the set designers and director had to come up with a way in which the ladder could still be climbed, without having the set suspended in mid-air.  They came up with the idea of having the bedroom set on the stage floor, and the ladder being used to descend into it, rather than ascend.  Although this method doesn't reflect the nature of the ladder in the opera, it does work for the setting. The ladder itself changes throughout the opera, with the fabric ladder played with during the overture and then being replaced as an access method by a secret tunnel in the headboard of the bed.  A twig is placed in the knotted sheets that transforms into a tree during the interval, so that throughout the second half the bedroom set is accessed by a tree, which serves as the ladder.  Having the ladder bloom from the sheets also plays nicely on the idea of love growing organically, and brings the point of the opera home. Unfortunately this production has run its course, but La scala di seta is a popular piece that will be played at various venues in the future.  It will be interesting to see how the set designers at other venues cope with the challenge of the ladder