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Florencia En El Amazonas - (Metropolitan Opera) Observer review by Gabrielle Ferrari.

The Met Opera’s Florencia en el Amazonas is magic made real. This is one of the opera house’s most visually stunning and emotionally affecting outing of recent seasons. Between set designer Riccardo Hernández and projection designer S. Katy Tucker’s stage (which was at once the deck of the riverboat, the river itself and the rainforest) Florencia is a feast for the eyes.

Florencia En El Amazonas - (Metropolitan Opera) Bazaar review by Anacaona Rocio Milagro

The set stuns with two towering rainforest walls, emerald along each side of a winding river under the bluest skies of the Amazon jungle…Inspired by Amazonian flora and fauna, the visual set by Riccardo Hernández and Ana Kuzmanić’s costumes create a world of beauty and wonder.

Waiting for Godot - (Theater For A New Audience) The New Yorker review by Vince Cunningham.

The Scenic Design by Riccardo Hernández, is stark - there’s a long, crumbling gravel road winding through the audience. I sat in the mezzanine and looked down on Shannon and Sparks - the view of an impassive God who never shows up but sees all.

The Thanksgiving Play - (Broadway Helen Hayes Theater) New York Times review by Jesse Green. NYT Critic’s Pick

For Broadway, they (and the production as a whole, including its set by Riccardo Hernández) have been pumped to emphasize the weight of indoctrination, among adults who should know better and children who can’t.

Carmen - (Minnessota Opera) Star Tribune review by Rob Hubbard.

Few instrumental interludes in this production aren’t accompanied by some visually splendid movement that drives the story forward, sometimes while an element of Riccardo Hernández’s awe-inspiring set is sliding into place.

Jagged Little Pill - (Theatre Royal - Australian Tour) The Sydney Morning Herald by John Shand.

The production boasts extravagantly impressive scenic design (Riccardo Hernández)

Des Moines -

Set designer Riccardo Hernández has created a very literal Des Moines, Iowa second floor apartment. But then he’s reaised the cantilevered set above the stage floor and has opened the trap room below exposing a chaotic network of steel beams and support structures going 20 feet down. The ceiling of the apartment hovers above the walls. The set feels almost cosmic. Looking at it, one is aware of a kind of existential abyss surrounding these characters and of forces beyond our understanding. The apartment is at times a metaphorical prison, a haven, a church, an island.

La Traviata - (Canadian Opera Company) The Globe and Mail by Jenna Simeonov

Amid the delicious details in Riccardo Hernández’s sets…our attention is always on the story of Alfredo and the courtesan Violetta.

Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune – (Broadway Production – Broadhurst Theater) New York Times review by Jesse Green (NYT Critic’s Pick)

“That two equally last-ditch middle-aged characters with such perfectly interlocking neuroses should find themselves in Frankie’s cheerless Hell’s Kitchen studio — the haunted-looking set is by Riccardo Hernández — is a premise you could pick at. Too much symmetry seems suspicious.”

Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune – (Broadway Production – Broadhurst Theater) onstageblog.com review by David Roberts

“Riccardo Hernández’s set and Natasha Katz’s lighting create a surreal environment that, like a third and fourth character, broods over Frankie and Johnny’s quest for authenticity and honesty as their relationship is created with rapid fire dialogue and staccato movement.”

Jagged Little Pill - (American Repertory Theater) Variety review by Bob Verini.

And set designer Riccardo Hernandez’s swirling panels act as restless screens for projection designer Finn Ross’s photos and videos, serving as both family album and national panorama.

Merchant of Venice - (Theater For A New Audience) New York Times review by Alexis Soloski.

On Riccardo Hernández’s set, a dodge’s palace given a Brutalist remodel, and under Marcus Doshi’s grim lights, the characters demean and betray one another.

Merchant of Venice - (Shakespeare Theatre Company) Talkin’ Broadway review by Susan Berlin.

Riccardo Hernández provides a monumental yet austere scenic design for the Michael R. Klein Theatre at the Lansburgh - blank, brutal concrete walls, broad stairways, and easy-to-miss entrance and exit doors upstage - all the better to focus on the anger, fear, and unearned sense of superiority the Christian characters show toward Shylock.

Toni Stone – (Roundabout Theater Company) New York Times review by Jesse Green (NYT Critic’s Pick)

“Riccardo Hernández’s unit set — just bleachers, bats and frames of floodlights — is deliberately nonspecific, as if to suggest the larger, cosmic arena in which the story plays out.”

Don Giovanni – (Santa Fe Opera) Santa Fe New Mexican review by James Keller.

“Once the opera started, it became clear that this production was not about realistic settings. The principal stage object rises from below decks during the overture: a gigantic human skull taking form out of an inchoate mass. It is never made explicit what it is meant to refer to, but probably it signifies mortality itself. It is there throughout the opera, receding only when the vaunted libertine is finally dragged down to Hell. Its rugged contours are enlivened by projected images that usually suggest a general milieu (shrubbery, branches) but sometimes introduce more surprising specters into this mythic realm, like a Madonna or a red-robed Dante.”

Indecent– (Broadway Production – Cort Theater) New York Times review by Ben Brantley. 

“The production begins with grave lyricism, with the suitcase-toting ensemble seated upstage, clad in earthen hues that blend into the shadows. (Emily Rebholz did the costumes, and the black-hole-of-history set is by Riccardo Hernandez.) When they rise, they shake cascades of ashes from their sleeves, a haunting evocation of a past of persecution and flight.”

TopDog/UnderDog - (Broadway Production - Ambassador Theater) New York Times review by Ben Brantley.

The fatalism implicit in such nomenclature is indeed acted out in the seedy boarding-house room the brothers share. It has been designed by Riccardo Hernández with the bruised, brown-toned look of a faded old photograph, reflecting Ms. Parks's premise that everyone is a prisoner of the past.

Caroline, or Change - (Royal National Theater, London) Guardian review by Michael Billington.

George C Wolfe's Lyttelton production, designed with floating elegance by Riccardo Hernandez, matches the poetic freedom of the narrative. 

Caroline, or Change - (Curran Theater, San Francisco) SFGate review by Robert Hurvitt.

Where Caroline is most fully in control is in the Gellmans' basement laundry room. Riccardo Hernández's magnificent sets segue from the worn wainscoting and pipes of the basement to Caroline's ramshackle porch and a great image of the Gellman house as a wallpaper cutout -- lit with moody intensity by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer.

The Gin Game - (Broadway Production - Golden Theater) New York Times review by Ben Brantley. (NYT Critic’s Pick)

On its surface, “The Gin Game,” which opened on Wednesday night at the John Golden Theater in a production cleanly directed by Leonard Foglia, could hardly be simpler: Set entirely on the porch of the home where Weller and Fonsia have none too happily come to rest (designed in gritty detail by Riccardo Hernandez), it depicts their sometimes friendly, sometimes testy relationship, which is stirred into life when the terminally bored Weller first spies in Fonsia the potential card partner he’s been pining for.

Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train - (Signature Theater) Variety review by Marilyn Stasio.

But if there’s one thing their steel-barred isolation cells (designed without mercy by Riccardo Hernandez) do extremely well, it’s convey a bleak sense of utter isolation.

The Skin of Our Teeth - (Theater For A New Audience) Curtain Up review by Elyse Sommer.

The Brechtian undercurrent of the comic-inflected beginning, quickly surface during our visit to the Antrobus home (just one example of Riccardo Hernandez's spectacular scenic work). 

The White Card - (American Repertory Theater) Theatermania.com review by Christopher Ehlers.

Diane Paulus is known for creating visual spectacle, and The White Card is no exception. The space is entirely constructed on the Robert J. Orchard Stage just for this play, and it is as visually jarring as the many themes tossed around in the play. Rather than using the proper stage and house, a smaller, sleek cube has been built on the Orchard stage, housing both the audience and the new runway-like playing space. Designed by Riccardo Hernandez, this pristine white set is spectacular, evoking a sterile and lab-like environment in which the audience, positioned on either side of the action, is under just as much of a microscope as the play itself. 

The Invisible Hand – (New York Theater Workshop) New York Times review by Charles Isherwood.

“The designer Riccardo Hernandez once again transforms the simple bones of the New York Theater Workshop, enveloping actors and audience in corrugated metal that feels both transitory and somehow ominous. Glaring fluorescent bars bathe the space in an antiseptic glow that’s also disturbing: Bare metal and piercing light seem a threat in themselves.”

Red Speedo– (New York Theater Workshop) New York Times review by Charles Isherwood (NYT Critic’s Pick)

“The sleek set, by Riccardo Hernandez, is a gym with an actual pool, a slice of which fronts the stage.”

 Red Speedo - Associated Press article.

In a triumph of set design, a theater builds a swimming pool.

https://www.dailyherald.com › article › entlife

The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World – (Signature Theater) New York Times review by Ben Brantley (NYT Critic’s Pick)

“Then there are those of more noble titles, such as Queen-Then-Pharaoh Hatshepsut, Old Man River Jordan and Before Columbus. But they all belong to the same circular cavalcade, which moves in endless procession across Riccardo Hernandez’s sloped shadowland of a set, lighted by Yi Zhao with the dark starkness of a bad dream.”

The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World - (Signature Theater) Financial Times review by Max McGuiness.

“A man sits on stage holding a watermelon; an Egyptian queen glides alongside; a girl in her Sunday best practices tongue twisters. All this seems to spring directly from the unconscious, as does Riccardo Hernández starkly beautiful design.”

Oedipus El Rey - New York Times review by Alexis Soloski (NYT Critic’s Pick)

“On Riccardo Hernandez’s set, adorned with a lurid mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mr. Alfaro riffs on his Greek source, but this play is a negative of the Sophocles original.”

Oedipus El Rey - New York Theatre Guide.com review by Donna Herman.

“Riccardo Hernandez's set is decidedly modern, but spare. Covering the bare brick wall at the back of the stage is a large hand-painted mural of decidedly Mexican origin with signature flowers and a large Virgin Mary in the middle. The only other thing on the stage are a few floor to ceiling sets of vertical iron bars that move on a horizontal plane.”

Notes From the Field – (American Repertory Theater) Boston Globe review by Patti Hartigan

“Riccardo Hernandez’s set features six white panels, which become a disjointed television or computer screen that displays sadly familiar scenes like Gray’s arrest and the Texas girl in the bathing suit being restrained by police while she cries out for her mother. In one scene, the panels display gray lockers in a Charleston, S.C., high school; at first glance, they resemble jail cells, not lockers.”

A Doll’s House and The Father (Theater For A New Audience) American Theater magazine article by Carol Rocamora.

Your choice of the “traverse” configuration in the new TFANA space is an inspired one, with the audience seated on either side of these claustrophobic households, peering through gossamer curtains (in A Doll’s House) or through smoke (The Father) into explosive scenes of domestic violence.
Arin Arbus: It was a challenge to find a design to work for both plays. Riccardo Hernandez, the set designer, wanted The Father to feel like a boxing ring, so at first we wanted to stage it in the round. But for A Doll’s House you need doors. So the traverse configuration felt right. It’s like a sporting event—men versus women, Ibsen versus Strindberg. These plays are about entrapment, and that’s reflected in the set.

 King Lear - (Theater For A New Audience) New York Times review Ben Brantley. (NYT Critic’s Pick)

…they all combine into a clear, often haunting melody. Its motifs are beautifully echoed by the design team, which includes Riccardo Hernandez (the uncompromisingly spartan set) and Susan Hilferty (the stately Edwardian costumes).

Yardbird - (Opera Philadelphia) New York Times review by Anthony Tommasini.

In “Yardbird” Parker first appears as a kind of ghost, having arrived at Birdland, the Manhattan jazz club named for him. In this spare, fluid production, directed by Ron Daniels with set designs by Riccardo Hernandez, the club looks mystical, with a row of video panels spelling out “Birdland,” each one showing the image of a jazz great. 

Lost Highway - (English National Opera/Young Vic) from the book Opera For Everybody: The Story of English National Opera by Susie Gilbert.

For Olga Neuwirth’s Lost Highway, based on David Lynch’s cult film of ‘parallel lives, swapped personalities and morbid sexual fantasies’, the director Diane Paulus and designer Riccardo Hernandez made brilliant use of the space with a fiberglass room suspended above a highway-like central acting area.

Il Tabarro/I Pagliacci - (Opera Theater of Saint Louis) New York Times review by Vivien Schweitzer.

Riccardo Hernandez’s striking sets were dominated by large, illuminated letters spelling “circus.” Sinister clowns in whiteface and ruffles (costumes by Emily Rebholz) wandered in the audience and watched the play within a play like a silent Greek chorus.

A Coffin in Egypt – (Opera Philadelphia) Operatoonity.com review by

“A symbolic yet powerful and often luminous set by Riccardo Hernandez.” 

A Coffin in Egypt - (Opera Philadelphia) Opera News review by Mark Thomas Ketterson.

“The attractive visuals by set and costume designer Riccardo Hernandez enveloped the playing area with a gently curving wall painted to represent a sweeping expanse of cotton fields, all rendered in earthly russets and deep burgundy.”

Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk - (Public Theater) New York Times review by Ben Brantley.

Riccardo Hernandez’s simple, poetic and fluidly changing sets are lovely.

Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk - (National Tour - Ahmanson Theater Los Angeles) Variety review by Joel Hirschhorn.

Director George C. Wolfe’s initial idea with Glover, unveiled Off Broadway in 1995 and earning a Tony for direction after its 1996 Broadway transfer, presented the harsh, sordid facts of the subject head on, and “Lynching Blues” simulates a hanging man along with recitations of minor offenses that culminated in executions. The struggle of underpaid workers is dramatized with vibrant visual imagination by Riccardo Hernandez’s Chicago factory set in “Industrialization,” as employees hang from bars and leap over railings.

Parade - (Broadway Production - Vivian Beaumont Theater) from the book Harold Prince A Director’s Journey by Carol Ilson -

…that allowed director Hal Prince to do his best work, using Riccardo Hernandez’s set design - often filling out crowd scenes with eerie-looking cardboard cutouts - with blazing theatricality. More important, the production captures a world in which extremes of cruelty and gentility are possible. (from David Patrick Stearns’s review in USA Today)

He (critic John Simon) commended the sets by Riccardo Hernandez as '“richly evocative and find the proper blend of realism and stylization, of solidity and fluidity, of Here and Beyond.”

.Fetch Clay, Make Man – (New York Theater Workshop) New York Times review by Charles Isherwood.

“Thankfully the mechanics of the play are largely disguised by vivid performances and the slickly designed production. The set, by Riccardo Hernandez, has a subtle symbolic resonance. The stage is a white square the size and shape of a boxing ring. A large white screen, on which archival images of the actual figures are projected, looms against the back wall. As accentuated by the bright lighting of Howell Binkley, this pristine environment symbolizes the dominance of the white culture against which the play’s characters try to assert themselves.”

Britannicus - (American Repertory Theater) Variety review by Frank Rizzo.

One does not expect togas in this multimedia take on the verse drama. In Riccardo Hernandez’s sleek yet raw chambered set (artfully lit by Christopher Akerlind), the walls have ears (and eyes, too, as surreptitious video cameras project closeups of the characters trying to conceal themselves).

Desire Under the Elms - (American Repertory Theater) Variety review by Frank Rizzo.

The stage terrain, so rough the actors wear kneepads, is filled with stones, boulders and coarse gravel. A rusting pickup truck is off to the side, a dirty mattress in a corner. There’s no warm hearth of a New England home here; no lush, looming elms in Riccardo Hernandez’s harrowing set, but rather an upended frame of a dreary house that offers no refuge and a pair of stripped-down trees awaiting their final fall.

 Desire Under the Elms - (American Repertory Theater) Boston.com review by Ed Siegel.

Janos Szasz's intense, relentless production is forever dancing around that quicksand without falling in. The front yard of the slanted house in Riccardo Hernandez's eye-popping set is all gravel and rocks. 

February House - (Public Theater) New York Times review by Ben Brantley.

George, the inventor of the place, sees his boardinghouse (represented as a sort of floating island of antiques by the designer Riccardo Hernandez) as a sanctuary not just for great minds in search of rooms of their own but also for those who, like himself, can’t conform to societal norms of love. 

The Miser - (American Repertory Theater) Variety review by Dennis Harvey.

At last the ensemble of servants — so spastically woeful they seem to have strayed from “Marat/Sade” — pulls it down, revealing Riccardo Hernandez’s bare set of a once-stately interior so decrepit it appears uninhabitable (and, given the absence of furniture, uninhabited). Toward evening’s end, half the floor becomes unmoored and the ceiling crumbles.

 Cyrano de Bergerac - (South Coast Repertory Theater) Variety review by Steven Oxman.

“Riccardo Hernandez’s set is elegant simplicity defined. Among the busiest designers in the field, currently represented on Broadway by “Caroline, or Change”, Hernandez employs a set of moving square columns that restrict and amplify the space as needed, and also provide an appropriate sense of a proscenium arch for Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play. At the back is a large scrim, with projections of a pencil – sketched cityscape. The final act, when Cyrano arrives on the verge of death, and the truth finally outs, is dominated by a starkly beautiful, defoliating tree set centerstage, with its russet leaves falling through the end.