# Appalling Productions



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

This production of Falstaff looks so frightful I'm glad it's not on YouTube complete. Conducted by Barenboim with all the energy of a hippo emerging from a swamp.

Anyone else got any more shockers?


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

It´s modern, it´s bad? 

No, judging from the picture, I actually find this quite interesting, I like the colour range and minimalist designs, making it possible to concentrate more on the music and the story too, and as a contrast to re-using oh-so predictable, dusty and very traditional theatre costumes.

I just hope the female figure fully agrees with her (lack of) costume here. But good & intelligent actors often have an open attitude towards such stage ideas, however.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Meh. Were it not for the final scene at Herne's oak (which appears to have been chopped down and carted away), this might be a mere modern dress production, which is hardly jarringly original nowadays. Not that that makes it other than pointless, of course. I certainly wouldn't pay to see it.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Not being able to see the complete production I can't judge.

The worst production I've seen was Lohengrin in Berlin. The concept was ok, but certainly nothing memorable. However, the blocking made no sense whatsoever and was comic in some places. When Telramund was murdered in act three his body fell across the centre of the stage and everybody kept stepping over it for the rest of the scene.

N.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

joen_cph said:


> *It´s modern, it´s bad?
> *
> No, judging from the picture, I actually find this quite interesting, I like the colour range and minimalist designs, making it possible to concentrate more on the music and the story too, and as a contrast to re-using oh-so predictable, dusty and very traditional theatre costumes.
> 
> I just hope the female figure fully agrees with her (lack of) costume here. But good & intelligent actors often have an open attitude towards such stage ideas, however.


Not bad because it's modern. Just bad!


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

It's poorly recorded, with voices sounding like they're coming from the back of a large cavern, so it's difficult to assess the quality of singing. But I don't see anything intrinsically wrong about modernizing opera settings. 

I guess you're not crazy about the skimpy outfits? This is barely more risqué than a 60s beach movie, and in any case, appropriate for a famously bawdy character and play like Falstaff and the Merry Wives. The sets are attractive, there's nice use of color, and it looks like there's good stage direction in terms of movement and space. I'd go see it.

edited to add--I particularly like the swimming pool set. With the colors and outfits and design, it looks like a Hockney painting. Very evocative.


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

Bringing the action of an opera up to date, placing it in an unlikely setting, and getting the characters to behave in a way that sharply contradicts their words and most often the music that was composed for them -- nothing new to see here. But I'll be damned if I'd waste my money on this kind of artistic venture. I'm more interested in coming to terms with the works themselves than with some director's opaque or ironic interpretation of them.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I like it.

Here is something worse Tosca directed by Calixto Beito I have mentioned this production before in the Tosca with Opolais thread and I did not say it then but I say it now I think Svetlana Aksenova is a better Tosca than Opolais:






Here is something really horrifying:


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Well, Falstaff is based on a Shakespeare play, and meant to be set in early 15th century England. Bikinis, business clothes, and bare sets don't cut the mustard somehow.


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## Guest (Sep 19, 2018)

Every now and then a production doesn't really make sense to me. Updating a setting to a modern time can and has worked remarkably well when drawing on the themes of the opera and applying them to today's world. The current Parsifal at Bayreuth is a relevant example. However, some productions update the setting _without_ being purposeful about it, often not even using the stage in any effective way. Bieito's productions, to someone who knows very little about staging an opera, actually look like the composition of elements, movements and designs on the stage are very well considered and compelling to look at, even if there are cases where relating those decisions to the opera itself is a bit of a stretch.

The least interesting and the worst productions of opera I've ever seen are productions that take nothing from the themes present in the libretto for interpretation. I think that's an awful trend in more traditional productions like the Lepage Ring from the Metropolitan Opera and some others. If there is no effort made to inform the production with what is present in the libretto, then the production will simply fall flat.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Sloe said:


> I like it.
> 
> Here is something worse Tosca directed by Calixto Beito I have mentioned this production before in the Tosca with Opolais thread and I did not say it then but I say it now I think Svetlana Aksenova is a better Tosca than Opolais:


I had the misfortune to see Bieito's Tosca when I was in Oslo. He should be embarrassed, Den Norsk Oper should be ashamed, heck, I was embarrassed to think this is any part of the art form I so love.

As for the Falstaff, I saw Robert Carsen's (well-received) Aggripina in Vienna a couple of years ago, which this Falstaff bears a striking resemblance to. The ladies seemed to enjoy the buff young countertenors in the swimming trunks! And to link these two further, I didn't actually like Carsen's 1950's Falstaff which did the rounds of all the main houses.

I wonder whether Falstaff emailed Alice and Meg in this version. Hardly an idea of staggering inventiveness, as a director may smugly think. I don't usually like highly modern versions but a copy and paste email read on their phones would certainly fit the plot. Oh, and Nadine Sierra in a bikini in this production. Yes!


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## Guest (Sep 19, 2018)

I'm rather surprised that people think Bieito's Tosca is bad. I've seen it, and what I found most apparent was how Bieito's staging clearly emphasises ideas surrounding art in relation to politics, free expression versus the suppression in the prevailing regime. Is it too on the nose for some people? I don't know about anyone else, but when I engage with any story (in any form, opera being one I'm most interested in) the themes are always an important part of how the story is experienced and processed in my mind. Furthermore, I think Bieito uses the stage and the visual elements on the stage really well.

I'm interested to hear if I'm actually taking the wrong approach in enjoying opera, because if this production really _is_ badly executed then I'd love to know what recent productions have presented Tosca in this way but better.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I see nothing objectionable about altering the mise-en-scene of an opera to a different period from that specified in the libretto, so long as the effect isn't too strange or incongruous. Modern dress for old theatrical works is by now a virtual cliche, and sometimes it works perfectly well and sometimes it doesn't. Recall that Verdi's _La Traviata_ was originally intended to be done in contemporary dress (1853), was changed by order of the censors to ca. 1700, was later updated to the 1880s by Visconti for Maria Callas, and has been done in modern dress any number of times. Hardly anyone now seems to care in what period it's set. What matters is that the staging be compatible with the libretto and not clash with the emotions expressed in the score. Unfortunately this is frequently not the case, and I'm amazed at what nonsense people are willing to tolerate and for what frivolous reasons - e.g.,"I'm tired of musty old period sets and costumes" - as if the only alternative to drab visual cliches were idiocies like dressing townspeople in rat costumes so as to make some kind of "statement" inscrutable to anyone without explanatory program notes.

The _Falstaff_ in the OP seems potentially objectionable, not in its contemporary setting and costumes as such, but in the likelihood that elements in the plot and dialogue are incongruous with contemporary life. This is a problem with a lot of operas, and the compulsion to "update" them despite the cognitive dissonance it creates is an artistic perversion hard to justify.


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## OperaChic (Aug 26, 2015)

shirime said:


> The least interesting and the worst productions of opera I've ever seen are productions that take nothing from the themes present in the libretto for interpretation. I think that's an awful trend in more traditional productions like the Lepage Ring from the Metropolitan Opera and some others. If there is no effort made to inform the production with what is present in the libretto, then the production will simply fall flat.


Most of my objections to the LePage Ring were actually musical, not necessarily visual. I thought there were some stunning sequences in it. I suppose it comes down to who we believe should be the one decide what the subject matter of an opera is: the director or the spectator. I'm not into trying to decipher what a director believes are the important themes and concepts when I view an opera. I'd rather see a production that was faithful to the composer's and librettist's stage directions, an attempt to represent the creator's artistic vision, and decide for myself what it's value is.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Anything with bugs, simulated fornication, men's bare asses at urinals, and hubristic misogynists named Neuenfels, Bieito and the like who think they can better the composer and librettists' ideas.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

_Anything with bugs..._

Hopefully you would still allow Jupiter disguised as a fly in _Orphée aux enfers_? :lol:


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

nina foresti said:


> Anything with bugs, simulated fornication, men's bare asses at urinals, and hubristic misogynists named Neuenfels, Bieito and the like who think they can better the composer and librettists' ideas.


Seeing Google pictures for Ligeti´s _Le Grand Macabre_ clearly trumps those timid coqueteries


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

DavidA said:


> This production of Falstaff looks so frightful I'm glad it's not on YouTube complete. Conducted by Barenboim with all the energy of a hippo emerging from a swamp.


I saw this _Falstaff_ in March.

This was my first live _Falstaff_ and before attending the music of this opera had not yet clicked for me; it never was that compelling, musically. Hearing it under Barenboim, though, everything make sense. It's not surprising that that would not come off via short clips in a trailer, but in the house it worked very well. Though this was also Barenboim's debut conducting the opera, so while he was good enough to impress me, a beginner, others who know the opera well may not have gotten what they wanted.

I wrote a little about the production and the singers in the Opera trips thread:



mountmccabe said:


> I will note that I am not that familiar with the opera, but the production seems relatively traditional, albeit with a modern setting.
> 
> Michael Volle made his debut as Falstaff, and sounded wonderful. He had good mix of authority and pathos. I'm not sure I saw the transition to haha, everything is alright at the end, but the plot makes it difficult.
> 
> Barbara Frittoli was fantastic as Alice; Daniela Barcellona was Mrs. Quickly, and was particularly funny in her scenes with Falstaff. The Fenton and Nannetta of Francesco Demuro and Nadine Sierra were a natural young couple, and in fine contrast to the other characters. Sierra sang a compellingly beautiful "Sul fil d'un soffio etesio."


And I think approximately the whole time Nanetta is in a bikini (sans bathrobe) is shown in that trailer. It's not like she was in a bikini the whole time, and, as I noted in March, I think it makes sense, contextually in the modern dress production, having her look different from the older ladies.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Don Fatale said:


> I wonder whether Falstaff emailed Alice and Meg in this version. Hardly an idea of staggering inventiveness, as a director may smugly think. I don't usually like highly modern versions but a copy and paste email read on their phones would certainly fit the plot.


No. In this clip video it shows them reading from pieces of paper.


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> I see nothing objectionable about altering the mise-en-scene of an opera to a different period from that specified in the libretto, so long as the effect isn't too strange or incongruous. Modern dress for old theatrical works is by now a virtual cliche, and sometimes it works perfectly well and sometimes it doesn't. Recall that Verdi's _La Traviata_ was originally intended to be done in contemporary dress (1853), was changed by order of the censors to ca. 1700, was later updated to the 1880s by Visconti for Maria Callas, and has been done in modern dress any number of times. Hardly anyone now seems to care in what period it's set. What matters is that the staging be compatible with the libretto and not clash with the emotions expressed in the score. Unfortunately this is frequently not the case, and I'm amazed at what nonsense people are willing to tolerate and for what frivolous reasons - e.g.,"I'm tired of musty old period sets and costumes" - as if the only alternative to drab visual cliches were idiocies like dressing townspeople in rat costumes so as to make some kind of "statement" inscrutable to anyone without explanatory program notes.
> 
> The _Falstaff_ in the OP seems potentially objectionable, not in its contemporary setting and costumes as such, but in the likelihood that elements in the plot and dialogue are incongruous with contemporary life. This is a problem with a lot of operas, and the compulsion to "update" them despite the cognitive dissonance it creates is an artistic perversion hard to justify.


One of aspects of all this that I find most fascinating is that while in the current musical climate fidelity to the written score is of utmost importance and operas are usually given complete without cuts in deference to the composer and as an attempt at cohesion between the music and the text, at the same time these directors don't feel any obligation to recreate a visual approximation of the artist's conception that would make the interplay between action, words, scenario and music a coherent whole. As if these were completely unrelated!! So we end up with a kind of aesthetic trainwreck, with the visual and aural elements disjointed and working at cross-purposes; on one side an attempt to be utterly faithful to the composer's intent, the other an attempt at rearranging the elements of something old to create something completely new.

Maybe as you say those who enjoy this kind of regietheatre put up with this because they are tired of what they see as traditional, stuffy productions. Or maybe they have a kind of aversion to period dress in the first place. I also get the feeling there is a niche of an audience who enjoys being challenged by a new production and embrace these visual meta-commentaries on the works as they are a process of simultaneously viewing and analyzing the opera. However this process doesn't hold any appeal for me personally; as much as I get out of contemplating the messages and analyzing the themes of my favorite operas, while attending an opera I want to be able to feel, metabolize and be swept away by a performance. Afterwards is the time for reflection. I've never seen a regie production that made that possible for me; if anything I'm in a state of bewilderment and the only thing I'm reflecting on is how what I just saw relates to the original work of art. Thank God for audio recordings.

I also find it a little weird that when we are presented with these kind of directorial reimaginings we pretend that we are still viewing "Wagner's" Parsifal or "Mozart's" Don Giovanni. It would at least be more honest to bill the production as "Martone's adaptation of Verdi's Falstaff" or "Bieito's deconstruction of Puccini's Tosca".


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Byron said:


> One of aspects of all this that I find most fascinating is that while in the current musical climate fidelity to the written score is of utmost importance and operas are usually given complete without cuts in deference to the composer and as an attempt at cohesion between the music and the text, at the same time these directors don't feel any obligation to recreate a visual approximation of the artist's conception that would make the interplay between action, words, scenario and music a coherent whole. As if these were completely unrelated!! So we end up with a kind of aesthetic trainwreck, with the visual and aural elements disjointed and working at cross-purposes; on one side an attempt to be utterly faithful to the composer's intent, the other an attempt at rearranging the elements of something old to create something completely new.
> 
> Maybe as you say those who enjoy this kind of regietheatre put up with this because they are tired of what they see as traditional, stuffy productions. Or maybe they have a kind of aversion to period dress in the first place. I also get the feeling there is a niche of an audience who enjoys being challenged by a new production and embrace these visual meta-commentaries on the works as they are a process of simultaneously viewing and analyzing the opera. However this process doesn't hold any appeal for me personally; as much as I get out of contemplating the messages and analyzing the themes of my favorite operas, while attending an opera I want to be able to feel, metabolize and be swept away by a performance. Afterwards is the time for reflection. I've never seen a regie production that made that possible for me; if anything I'm in a state of bewilderment and the only thing I'm reflecting on is how what I just saw relates to the original work of art. Thank God for audio recordings.
> 
> I also find it a little weird that when we are presented with these kind of directorial reimaginings we pretend that we are still viewing "Wagner's" Parsifal or "Mozart's" Don Giovanni. It would at least be more honest to bill the production as "Martone's adaptation of Verdi's Falstaff" or "Bieito's deconstruction of Puccini's Tosca".


I am all for shedding new light on an old masterpiece but as you say it should be done in conformity to the composer of the work concerned. I'm not against updating but the action should be congruous with what the libretto is saying. I am really tired of drab modern productions in modern dress. I go to the theatre to escape that!


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## Guest (Sep 21, 2018)

DavidA said:


> I am all for shedding new light on an old masterpiece but as you say it should be done in conformity to the composer of the work concerned. I'm not against updating but the action should be congruous with what the libretto is saying. I am really tired of drab modern productions in modern dress. I go to the theatre to escape that!


When it comes to realism, done in modern dress, I'm certainly less inclined to pay attention. Of course, some of the time it is done well, but that seems quite rare to me. Using an updated setting as a way to explore themes as directly relevant to today's world can certainly be interesting, but it can often be a bit on-the-nose. Often it's the more abstract (perhaps symbolist?) productions that resonate the strongest and do more to bring out the essence of the libretto's themes, the psychology of the characters and even, to varying extents, create a truly symbiotic relationship between the music and stage action.

Not to say that modern-dress realist style is alone in being particularly disinterested in the essence of the opera being performed, but sometimes we get jumbled, nearly nonsensical productions such as Zeffirelli's _Turandot_ that seems to treat the opera as having a happy ending????






But there are certainly plenty of the more 'traditional' productions of opera that are perfectly fun, such as Richard Jones' production of _Hänsel und Gretel_ or even absolutely divine, such as Otto Schenk's _Der Rosenkavalier._

Other times, when an opera is suited to having some bizarre element, it's certainly never a bad thing to bring out the bizarre element for the sake of fun and entertainment, because opera _is_ entertainment after all:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

shirime said:


> sometimes we get jumbled, nearly nonsensical productions such as Zeffirelli's _Turandot_ that seems to treat the opera as having a happy ending????


The problem with _Turandot_ isn't Zefirelli's production but the opera itself.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Byron said:


> I also find it a little weird that when we are presented with these kind of directorial reimaginings we pretend that we are still viewing "Wagner's" Parsifal or "Mozart's" Don Giovanni. It would at least be more honest to bill the production as "Martone's adaptation of Verdi's Falstaff" or "Bieito's deconstruction of Puccini's Tosca".


How about "Neuenfels' _Lohengrin_ with music and libretto by Richard Wagner."


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## Guest (Sep 21, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> How about "Neuenfels' _Lohengrin_ with music and libretto by Richard Wagner."


Actually one of the best productions I've seen. It certainly doesn't feel forced in its interpretation of the themes as taken from the libretto, nor does it feel stiff and unemotional. It's very well balanced, engaging and relevant to the things that Wagner had an interest in when it comes to authority versus the masses.


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## Guest (Sep 21, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> The problem with _Turandot_ isn't Zefirelli's production but the opera itself.


I don't have a problem with the opera itself, and I think the uncomfortable ending is fascinating in how it reveals Calaf and Turandot as superficial, subverting from the expected transformation that they learn from their actions. The real turning point is around Liu's death, the mob mentality of the chorus and the increasingly toxic environment that results from it. It has an uncomfortable ending, and a good production would be able to recognise that uncomfortable ending and the importance of that important turning point that separates Liu and characters like her from Calaf, Turandot and the crowd. I've often wondered if there is a production out there that leaves Liu's dead body front and centre throughout the rest of the opera, making for a properly jarring ending when we see the other characters simply forget about her, despite her being one of the few likeable characters that the audience is able to connect with. I don't know what Zeffirelli intended with his production, but I simply don't get it at all. It isn't clear what he is drawing from the story or characters to inform the production.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

shirime said:


> I don't have a problem with the opera itself, and I think the uncomfortable ending is fascinating in how it reveals Calaf and Turandot as superficial, subverting from the expected transformation that they learn from their actions. The real turning point is around Liu's death, the mob mentality of the chorus and the increasingly toxic environment that results from it. It has an uncomfortable ending, and a good production would be able to recognise that uncomfortable ending and the importance of that important turning point that separates Liu and characters like her from Calaf, Turandot and the crowd. I've often wondered if there is a production out there that leaves Liu's dead body front and centre throughout the rest of the opera, making for a properly jarring ending when we see the other characters simply forget about her, despite her being one of the few likeable characters that the audience is able to connect with. I don't know what Zeffirelli intended with his production, but I simply don't get it at all. It isn't clear what he is drawing from the story or characters to inform the production.


The opera, as we have it, really is problematic. Puccini's intention was to portray a true transformation and humanization of Turandot through a love duet that he hoped would have a sublime grandeur beyond anything he had written (in his notes he writes "Tristan?"). He wasn't trying for an incongruous ending, but he certainly recognized that Liu's death was an emotional obstacle he would have to overcome by making it appear somehow justified, a ritual sacrifice by a sinless soul for the sake of another's redemption. He may not have succeeded fully in conveying this, and of course Alfano had to make the best of the libretto and the musical sketches Puccini left behind.

Though we have the right to feel that the happy ending is jarring and unsatisfactory, Zeffirelli (like most directors) is simply being true to Puccini's intentions, intentions he did not live to carry out fully. Can we just forget about poor Liu, then, and believe in the full humanity of these strange, barbaric people who can put her death so easily behind them? I can't, and so I find the ending of the opera as it exists unsatisfying. We might, as you suggest, change the ending, keep Liu front and center and make the whole final scene seem as cruel as the rest of the opera, but there's nothing in the text or music to justify it. In any case, torturing and killing innocent young women was something of a Puccini specialty, and we can hope that Liu has gone to some victim's heaven along with Manon Lescaut, Mimi, Tosca, Butterfly and Suor Angelica.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I agree, Woodduck, but at least Tosca gets her revenge in first - all the other deaths amount to meek acceptance.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

elgars ghost said:


> I agree, Woodduck, but at least Tosca gets her revenge in first - all the other deaths amount to meek acceptance.


Yes, she does. But my favorite Puccini gal is Minnie Sharpshootin' Rootin' Tootin' Oakley.


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

shirime said:


> Actually one of the best productions I've seen. It certainly doesn't feel forced in its interpretation of the themes as taken from the libretto, nor does it feel stiff and unemotional. It's very well balanced, engaging and relevant to the things that Wagner had an interest in when it comes to authority versus the masses.


I disagree. Whatever point Neuenfels is trying to make with the rat costumes about collective crowd behavior is essentially his idea, not Wagner's. The very fact that he has to make such an extreme distortion of the original opera in order to convey this message only goes to show how completely Wagner failed to get this idea across. Whatever commentary on masses versus authority the opera makes, stage the opera in accordance with Wagner's artistic conception with the choruses made up of soldiers and citizens from 10th century Brabant and let the audience decide if this is a prominent theme in the work.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

shirime said:


> Actually one of the best productions I've seen. It certainly doesn't feel forced in its interpretation of the themes as taken from the libretto, nor does it feel stiff and unemotional. It's very well balanced, engaging and relevant to the things that Wagner had an interest in when it comes to authority versus the masses.


What makes Neuenfels think that "authority versus the masses" is something Wagner is particularly concerned with in _Lohengrin?_ And even if it is, how would rats be a suitable (not to mention non-comical, since this is not a comic opera) symbol of it? Are we, the audience, actually expected to understand what point is being made? And is puzzling over such a peculiar spectacle what Wagner wants us to be doing?

All of Wagner's operas show, in one way or another, conflict, misunderstanding, or some sort of disjuncture between conventional society and characters motivated by a higher vision of reality. But Wagner is perfectly capable of making this clear through the characters, words, actions, and settings he asks for. The men of Brabant who've gathered by the Scheldt are ordinary men of their time and place, predictable in their mores and behaviors, predictably uncomprehending at the vision which descends into their midst, and well-portrayed by the composer. They are men, not vermin in goofy uniforms. I recall that when Elsa is brought before King Henry, unjustly accused of murdering her brother, Neuenfels has big fat rats with drawn bows surrounding her and arrows sticking out of her torso. Evidently this is to inform those of us unacquainted with the plot and incapable of hearing the words being sung that she is being...well, unjustly accused of murdering her brother. What a stroke of directorial inspiration!

The compulsion of regietheater directors to dig for minor themes and treat them as their own important discoveries, or to take a perfectly obvious, already well-expressed major theme and employ some crass or arcane symbol to beat us over the head with it, turns great works of art into ego trips which are likely either to perplex us or insult our intelligence.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Apparently not appalling to most people, yet highly controversial, and even shocking - but tends to get good reviews.

The current "_Magic Flute_" at Theatre la Monnaie in Brussels, Romeo Castellucci´s production.
The first part is held in white colours only, stucco-work-like, it seems.

https://www.opera-lille.fr/en/season-18-19/bdd/sid/99811_the-magic-flute-or-the-song-of-the-mother

https://www.olyrix.com/articles/pro...schel-devieilhe-karthauser-ingelgem-noldus-ku

https://www.lamonnaie.be/en/program/831-die-zauberflote

https://www.bozar.be/en/activities/137645-romeo-castellucci


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

I still have war flashbacks from Bieito's Don Giovanni and I only watched the finale. WHY. I'd sooner trust M. Night Shwhatshisname to direct an opera.

Also: that Bregenz Trovatore. I'm sure it looked cool live, but on film it's just an ugly set, zero Personenregie and mediocre-to-bad singing. How on Earth did the same person direct this and the best Onegin ever? 

The Munich Trovatore is also pretty bad, mostly because it's an incoherent mess of half-***** ideas and too many distractions, but at least it has good singers.

On the other hand, I enjoyed the La Monnaie Trovatore. It was oddly charming the way Lynch's Dune is oddly charming, plus it was kind of hilarious then really dark.

Also: Vienna Forza. The chorus/Preziosilla scenes were just... wtf. The rest was pretty good and straightforward.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

shirime said:


> I don't have a problem with the opera itself, and I think the uncomfortable ending is fascinating in how it reveals Calaf and Turandot as superficial, subverting from the expected transformation that they learn from their actions. The real turning point is around Liu's death, the mob mentality of the chorus and the increasingly toxic environment that results from it. It has an uncomfortable ending, and a good production would be able to recognise that uncomfortable ending and the importance of that important turning point that separates Liu and characters like her from Calaf, Turandot and the crowd. I've often wondered if there is a production out there that leaves Liu's dead body front and centre throughout the rest of the opera, making for a properly jarring ending when we see the other characters simply forget about her, despite her being one of the few likeable characters that the audience is able to connect with. *I don't know what Zeffirelli intended with his production,* but I simply don't get it at all. It isn't clear what he is drawing from the story or characters to inform the production.


I thought he was just using Alfano's ending


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Byron said:


> I disagree. Whatever point Neuenfels is trying to make with the rat costumes about collective crowd behavior is essentially his idea, not Wagner's. The very fact that he has to make such an extreme distortion of the original opera in order to convey this message only goes to show how completely Wagner failed to get this idea across. Whatever commentary on masses versus authority the opera makes, stage the opera in accordance with Wagner's artistic conception with the choruses made up of soldiers and citizens from 10th century Brabant and let the audience decide if this is a prominent theme in the work.


I don't read it that way at all. I don't think non-traditional elements suggest that the composer was a failure as a dramatist, or that the opera as written is bad. Different costumes, sets, and action can be seen as a layering. Especially at Bayreuth the audience is largely going to know the opera as written. Almost no one seeing _Lohengrin_ on the Green Hill will be seeing it for the first time.

Thus what one sees does not have to be seen as negating what is written, but adding to it. The poetic resonance of the setting doesn't have to be forgotten because we see something different. Personally, if _Lohengrin_ (or whatever opera) looked the same every time I think I'd get quite bored of it. The setting as written isn't magic.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> I don't read it that way at all. I don't think non-traditional elements suggest that the composer was a failure as a dramatist, or that the opera as written is bad. *Different costumes, sets, and action can be seen as a layering.* Especially at Bayreuth the audience is largely going to know the opera as written. Almost no one seeing _Lohengrin_ on the Green Hill will be seeing it for the first time.
> 
> Thus what one sees does not have to be seen as negating what is written, but adding to it. *The poetic resonance of the setting doesn't have to be forgotten because we see something different. *Personally, *if Lohengrin (or whatever opera) looked the same every time I think I'd get quite bored of it.* The setting as written isn't magic.


The rich poetic resonance of the prelude to _Lohengrin_ - one of the most sublimely beautiful inspirations in music, IMO, and one which Wagner himself described eloquently in words - is rather difficult to appreciate when we're watching this:






And do we feel the gentle poetry of the famous wedding march in this? 




Is this what's called "layering"?

There's a broad and fruitful middle ground between making an opera look the same every time and imposing bizarre imagery on it. That's the middle ground that demands of a director both imagination and humility.


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

mountmccabe said:


> I don't read it that way at all. I don't think non-traditional elements suggest that the composer was a failure as a dramatist, or that the opera as written is bad. Different costumes, sets, and action can be seen as a layering. Especially at Bayreuth the audience is largely going to know the opera as written. Almost no one seeing _Lohengrin_ on the Green Hill will be seeing it for the first time.
> 
> Thus what one sees does not have to be seen as negating what is written, but adding to it. The poetic resonance of the setting doesn't have to be forgotten because we see something different. Personally, if _Lohengrin_ (or whatever opera) looked the same every time I think I'd get quite bored of it. The setting as written isn't magic.


A great work of art like Lohengrin is a layered, multifaceted product in and of itself, rich in meaning and capable of new revelations on every subsequent engagement with it. When a director takes an operatic masterpiece and radically changes it into a vehicle for his own ideas or symbols, this addition of "layers" creates whole new connotations for the audience never intended by the original artist, and the resulting conflation of ideas weighs down the impact of the work and results in obfuscation of the original artwork rather than illumination of it. Great interpreters understand how to make a work their own and lend their unique personal voice to it while still respecting and conveying the artist's intentions. It does not mean reinventing the work on a fundamental level.

The setting isn't "magical", but neither is it arbitrary. It was chosen by the composer for a reason, and works in relationship with the text and the music to give the opera context and informs the action of the characters. It is a part of the whole. Often changing the setting makes complete nonsense of the actions and verbal exchanges between characters, meaning neither can be taken literally any longer. But even when it doesn't render the opera nonsensical, altering the setting has an impact on the composer's artistic conception. Tristan and Isolde's love is so subversive and takes on its resonance and impact because of its chivalric, medieval setting with its particular laws and social and moral customs. The intro to Act 3 of Verdi's Aida is an evocative tone painting of the Nile River that would be meaningless to the listener if the setting were changed. So the setting is not something that can be disregarded.

As Woodduck pointed out, there is a huge gulf between staging the same production over and over and completely overhauling an opera. It is possible to create a a unique and powerful visual setting that allows for personal expression from the director and is still in line with the composer's intentions.

I might become bored with Beethoven's 9th if I only had one recording of it that I listened to frequently. However if I went to a concert to hear a fresh perspective on it I would not expect a conductor who considered the orchestration unimportant to reconstitute Beethoven's symphony as a propulsive rock epic for guitar, bass, drums and electronic keyboards. And after hearing this new conception presented as "Beethoven's 9th Symphony", I wouldn't tell myself what I heard was Beethoven's symphony because it used the same thematic material and and followed the structure of the original work. I would recognize it was a transcription and transformation of the symphony.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Byron said:


> The setting isn't "magical", but neither is it arbitrary. It was chosen by the composer for a reason, and works in relationship with the text and the music to give the opera context and informs the action of the characters. It is a part of the whole. Often changing the setting makes complete nonsense of the actions and verbal exchanges between characters, meaning neither can be taken literally any longer.


What we're seeing, though, is stagecraft, not reality. Is the first act of _Tristan und Isolde_ nonsense if it isn't presented on an actual boat? Does a production of _Aida_ need a real river with flowing water for it to not be nonsensical, or can we accept that we are seeing theatrical shorthand? What can we do for the fourth act of _Manon Lescaut_ so as to allow the desert outside New Orleans to be accepted literally?

Melot stabs Tristan at the end of act two of _Tristan und Isolde_ yet there is rarely a real stabbing on stage. They may use a retracting fake sword, or do the old trick where Tristan stands in profile and the actual sword goes between his stomach and arm. Regardless, we accept it as what happens. Why is it suddenly nonsensical if Melot has a gun or a laser whip?



Byron said:


> But even when it doesn't render the opera nonsensical, altering the setting has an impact on the composer's artistic conception. Tristan and Isolde's love is so subversive and takes on its resonance and impact because of its chivalric, medieval setting with its particular laws and social and moral customs. The intro to Act 3 of Verdi's Aida is an evocative tone painting of the Nile River that would be meaningless to the listener if the setting were changed. So the setting is not something that can be disregarded.


And what I am suggesting is that the chivalric, medieval setting of Tristan und Isolde is not destroyed by there being a production where the characters are wearing modern pants. The modern pants do not, of course, highlight or focus our attention on the medieval period, but they do not negate it. (There should, of course, be some reason for the modern pants).

And I think Verdi can evoke a river - and have our associations with rivers and the Nile come to mind - without there being a literal river represented on stage.



Byron said:


> As Woodduck pointed out, there is a huge gulf between staging the same production over and over and completely overhauling an opera. It is possible to create a a unique and powerful visual setting that allows for personal expression from the director and is still in line with the composer's intentions.


And I find it bizarre to focus on literalism in an art form as rooted in symbolism and gesture as opera. Some people complain about people singing highly technical 8-minute arias whilst dying... but that's just how opera works. I saw _Roberto Devereux_ this afternoon and seeing Queen Elizabeth singing (in Italian, even) was not the least bit jarring.

(Incidentally: So much of the opera being fictionalized anti-Tudor propaganda is a little weird, but we know that going on. Having the set evoke the Globe theater was also not troublesome (and I don't see how it would be if I didn't know that going in either). Dropping the ball and not having this Globe full of onlookers at all time was more disappointing (though more as a missed opportunity than anything else)).



Byron said:


> I might become bored with Beethoven's 9th if I only had one recording of it that I listened to frequently. However if I went to a concert to hear a fresh perspective on it I would not expect a conductor who considered the orchestration unimportant to reconstitute Beethoven's symphony as a propulsive rock epic for guitar, bass, drums and electronic keyboards. And after hearing this new conception presented as "Beethoven's 9th Symphony", I wouldn't tell myself what I heard was Beethoven's symphony because it used the same thematic material and and followed the structure of the original work. I would recognize it was a transcription and transformation of the symphony.


Wendy Carlos' _Switched-On Bach_ was created not because she hated Bach or considered the original orchestrations unimportant, but because people found these versions for synthesizer interesting. The album is quite clear about what it is, and there have been plenty of performances and recordings of the works, most of them not on Moog synthesizers. (We could also consider people playing Bach on modern pianos).

There's a lot of disagreement about how Baroque opera should be performed; many of these works have been given with big full Romantic-era orchestras. Leos Janáček operas were almost always performed in reorchestrations until Charles Mackerras was able to change public opinion (though of course some still prefer the fuller versions). Revised orchestrations (entirely by choice) are not uncommon (though they are less common than they used to be).

I've seen operas performed in orchestral reductions; _Lulu_ and _Siegfried_ are two that come to mind (the _Lulu_ was also heavily cut). I've seen operas performed in piano reductions; _La Voix Humaine_ and _Suor Angelica_ come to mind. I certainly wish that these companies could have performed them with a full orchestra, but they couldn't. In each case their option was to present the opera in a reduction or not at all.

Each of these companies also noted what they were doing ahead of time, though the focus was of course on the opera and the composer. I don't need it to say Richard Bogart's interpretation of Richard Wagner's opera _Siegfried_, presented with reduced orchestration by Francis Griffin all in the biggest font. Nothing is presented this way because most people realize that every staging we see is going to be a representation of the written score. (And, to be clear, Bogart's production of Siegfried was quite traditional the sets and costumes aimed at natural representation. Regardless, it is still an expression of the opera).


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Is this what's called "layering"?


Just to be clear, this is a term I more or less made up to try and describe how I am relating to these productions. Seeing pink rats for the wedding march doesn't negate what was written, and it doesn't mean that future productions can't have more traditional wedding outfits that one might have seen in 10th Century Brabant.



Woodduck said:


> There's a broad and fruitful middle ground between making an opera look the same every time and imposing bizarre imagery on it. That's the middle ground that demands of a director both imagination and humility.


I don't disagree with this, and I think most of my favorite productions are in there. (Though I may also be using a more restrictive definition of "bizarre").

It's been a while since I've watched the Neuenfels _Lohengrin_ but I do remember it as quite theatrical and that it had some really compelling performances from the principals, especially from Georg Zeppenfeld and Petra Lang. And that will do more to get me engaged than naturalistic costumes and sets with people standing around.

I don't mean to suggest a false association: not all productions with naturalistic sets forget to have the principals do anything. And not all productions with non-traditional costumes and sets have compelling (or good) stage action. But that's what's most important for me.

And I think when I see non-traditionally imagery I am more likely to try to engage with the production and evaluate the choices made and how they work together. Personally when I see most period or old-fashioned outfits I disengage. In part because I am bad at distinguishing costume styles from different eras. And I saw too many historical dramas before I was in any place to appreciate them (and a few operas, too).

That is, if the choice is to try and recreate the period it's easy to focus on judging fidelity (though certainly one does not have to) and use that as a substitute for assessing the purpose of each stage element.

That is, I see rats and... well... it's incredibly clear that they're not aiming for fidelity to a period, or even fidelity to reality. Those rat costumes don't look like real rats, but that's not even a concern once one has accepted that there are rats on stage. That is, divorcing the staging from the naturalistic can open up an opera and allow it's core to shine through.

_Lohengrin_ isn't about 10th century Brabant. Wagner set it in that time, but it's not a history lesson, and it's not about weaponry or clothing styles of the time. I understand how the setting works to support the opera, but, again, I don't think the 10th century is destroyed by showing us something different on stage.

And, to be clear, I am not arguing that every production has to be unique, or non-traditional, or whatever. I am not even arguing that everyone has to like shifted settings or surreal imagery. I am trying to explain why I often accept, appreciate, or love these productions.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> Seeing pink rats for the wedding march doesn't negate what was written


How do you define "negate" and "written"? Are you listening to the music, much less reading the libretto? Wagner, of all opera composers, had the uncanny ability to give precise, evocative musical expression to dramatic ideas and visual imagery. How do large comical rats standing in a group making conducting motions with their front feet relate to anything in this scene of this opera? How is this silliness anything but a mockery? Neuenfels is saying "we all know this piece and are tired of it, so lets all just have a little laugh until the opera resumes." This belongs with the hippopotamus ballet in "Fantasia," not on the stage of Wagner's own theater.


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

mountmccabe said:


> What we're seeing, though, is stagecraft, not reality. Is the first act of _Tristan und Isolde_ nonsense if it isn't presented on an actual boat? Does a production of _Aida_ need a real river with flowing water for it to not be nonsensical, or can we accept that we are seeing theatrical shorthand? What can we do for the fourth act of _Manon Lescaut_ so as to allow the desert outside New Orleans to be accepted literally?
> 
> Melot stabs Tristan at the end of act two of _Tristan und Isolde_ yet there is rarely a real stabbing on stage. They may use a retracting fake sword, or do the old trick where Tristan stands in profile and the actual sword goes between his stomach and arm. Regardless, we accept it as what happens. Why is it suddenly nonsensical if Melot has a gun or a laser whip?
> 
> ...


As Aristotle argued in the Poetics, it is not impossibilities that destroy a dramatic narrative, but improbabilities: episodes that are false to the characters and their situations. The presence of inconsistency detracts from the cogency of the drama.



> And what I am suggesting is that the chivalric, medieval setting of Tristan und Isolde is not destroyed by there being a production where the characters are wearing modern pants. The modern pants do not, of course, highlight or focus our attention on the medieval period, but they do not negate it. (There should, of course, be some reason for the modern pants).


So at best, modern dress is merely pointless. Got it.



> Wendy Carlos' _Switched-On Bach_ was created not because she hated Bach or considered the original orchestrations unimportant, but because people found these versions for synthesizer interesting. The album is quite clear about what it is, and there have been plenty of performances and recordings of the works, most of them not on Moog synthesizers. (We could also consider people playing Bach on modern pianos).
> 
> There's a lot of disagreement about how Baroque opera should be performed; many of these works have been given with big full Romantic-era orchestras. Leos Janáček operas were almost always performed in reorchestrations until Charles Mackerras was able to change public opinion (though of course some still prefer the fuller versions). Revised orchestrations (entirely by choice) are not uncommon (though they are less common than they used to be).
> 
> ...


You either missed my point or completely ignored it.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Byron said:


> As Aristotle argued in the Poetics, it is not impossibilities that destroy a dramatic narrative, but improbabilities: episodes that are false to the characters and their situations. The presence of inconsistency detracts from the cogency of the drama.


That's how you're going to ignore every question I asked?



Byron said:


> So at best, modern dress is merely pointless. Got it.


That is not what I wrote nor what I meant and I believe you realize that.



Byron said:


> You either missed my point or completely ignored it.


One often hears complaints that many modern productions are dishonest and not really what they claim to be. I took that to be what you were getting at with your illustration. But your illustration is nonsense when read both literally and allegorically.


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

mountmccabe said:


> That's how you're going to ignore every question I asked?


All your questions were absurd. It's a concise rebuttal of your attempts at bending over backwards to justify dramatic inconsistency when all you really have to say is "I think when I see non-traditionally imagery I am more likely to try to engage with the production and evaluate the choices made and how they work together. Personally when I see most period or old-fashioned outfits I disengage.".



> That is not what I wrote nor what I meant and I believe you realize that.


That's what it boils down to.



> One often hears complaints that many modern productions are dishonest and not really what they claim to be. I took that to be what you were getting at with your illustration. But your illustration is nonsense when read both literally and allegorically.


It was not what I was getting at. Try again.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I think two things need to be kept in mind here. 1.) No one is arguing, and few people would contend, that theatrical productions of operas or plays should limit themselves to reproducing the precise settings, costumes and action indicated in the libretto or script. Arguing against doing so is fighting a straw man. 2.) Most people, I sincerely hope, think that the major themes and characters of a drama should be presented comprehensibly in whatever choices of production values are made.

It's perfectly possible to be faithful to the meaning of an opera's story and to the emotional import of its music with visual values and stage action never imagined by the composer or librettist. There's always going to be legitimate disagreement about how far we can depart from their specifications in any given case. The main consideration is that we don't offer something that contradicts the work or interferes with the clear communication of what's actually in it.

Unfortunately it's a characteristic of our postmodern world, in which anything can mean anything or nothing and everything is fair game, that the concept of artistic integrity has come to seem quaint, and the desire to impose our egotistical whims on great art (also a quaint concept) of the past is seen as completely legitimate (illegitimacy being another quaint concept). Hence productions that would once have been considered _parodies_ - a perfectly legitimate genre - are now put forward under the composers' names as "interpretations." How profoundly impoverished is our spirit and imagination, how total is our inability to comprehend Wagner, if we feel that Isolde needs to slit her wrists in order to die?


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

One could follow Wagner's stage directions perfectly, and still be completely original, with just a little talent and imagination...

....honestly at this point though , I would accept all manner of ridiculous production tomfoolery for a few truly great Wagnerian singers.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Byron said:


> All your questions were absurd. It's a concise rebuttal of your attempts at bending over backwards to justify dramatic inconsistency when all you really have to say is "I think when I see non-traditionally imagery I am more likely to try to engage with the production and evaluate the choices made and how they work together. Personally when I see most period or old-fashioned outfits I disengage.".


I was asking to try and understand what you were saying.



Byron said:


> Try again.


Absolutely not. Good bye.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> How do you define "negate" and "written"? Are you listening to the music, much less reading the libretto?


I mean that what exists on stage is not the only expression of this scene. Seeing pink rats doesn't mean that every other production has pink rats. Or that one's own conception of it has to be nothing but pink rats.

I'm honestly not even sure I've heard the Bridal Chorus more in the context of the opera _Lohengrin_ than recontextualized as a processional in other wedding, real life and fictional. SFO did a Wagner Choral Concert during each cycle of the Ring and the choral director introduced this piece as Elsa being led to her wedding ceremony (a processional with the end of Act 2 might be fun). But at any rate due to Princess Victoria and Frederick (and so on) we're going to have other associations with this scene.

At any rate, I don't look at it and ask "is this a perfect representation of this scene?" Not every production has to have every element done perfectly; that's really constricting. There were rats before and there are going to be rats afterward, so it makes sense contextually within this production (at the very least).



Woodduck said:


> Wagner, of all opera composers, had the uncanny ability to give precise, evocative musical expression to dramatic ideas and visual imagery.


I would like to explore where lines are drawn between the idea that the music perfectly evokes the scene and it being ruined by having something else on stage. Similarly it should be the common compulsion to stage narration, and the inevitable response that doing so is unnecessary because it's already there. (I often think that staging narration is a bad idea, or at least often find it done poorly).



Woodduck said:


> How do large comical rats standing in a group making conducting motions with their front feet relate to anything in this scene of this opera? How is this silliness anything but a mockery? Neuenfels is saying "we all know this piece and are tired of it, so lets all just have a little laugh until the opera resumes." This belongs with the hippopotamus ballet in "Fantasia," not on the stage of Wagner's own theater.


If you had the chorus and supers in rat costumes, how would you stage this chorus? I think putting the rats in gowns or having them throw rice or flowers might have made it seem more of a mockery.

What I like about Neuenfels' _Lohengrin_ is not how well it does with the bridal chorus. But up above I was going to say that really nothing one sees on stage is going to remove the image of non-operatic weddings from the heads of many people... but if anything can, perhaps pink rats would do the trick. That is, the non-traditional representation, the unexpected imagery can get one out of comparing the chorus on stage to real or fictional weddings one has seen and into the current staging (or at least it may be possible for those that are going with the concept).


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## davidglasgow (Aug 19, 2017)

mountmccabe said:


> _Lohengrin_ isn't about 10th century Brabant. Wagner set it in that time, but it's not a history lesson, and it's not about weaponry or clothing styles of the time. I understand how the setting works to support the opera, but, again, I don't think the 10th century is destroyed by showing us something different on stage


Wagner's Brabant as represented in the libretto is probably not historically accurate: it will almost inevitably tell us more about Wagner's 19th century point of view than a historical reality. But if we are so unhappy with Wagner's representation and deliberately include anachronisms and inch closer to saying that not only is the locale _approximate_ but actually _incidental_, it will at some point stop being Wagner's _Lohengrin_. Which is fine, as long as you drop his name off the program...

That isn't as dramatic as it sounds - if we made similar changes to, say, Euripides' _Medea_, you can say it is adapted, updated, deconstructed, pastiched etc etc but it is not authentic and at some point it would have to be admitted that it stopped being Euripides' version. Where is this line with Wagner? Should the librettos be changed?

"I don't think the 10th century is destroyed by showing us something different on stage" - I don't really follow. How about we swap this round and ask in what sense would a specifically 10th century geography be meaningfully _communicated_ and kept alive by showing something different? If the setting - or the weaponry or the clothing you discussed - leave all verisimilitude and period details behind, then the production is not grounded in the period requested by the composer. It might have many virtues and you can say it is abstract, it is updated, it is ambiguous etc...but it doesn't represent a specific epoch like 'The 10th Century'.

In early 20th century we saw the orchestral scores being sliced and diced in all manner of ways (not just Bodansky at the Met but he springs to mind) to suit contemporary tastes while the staging often looked traditional. Musicians and audiences in the early 21st century would abhor those sorts of cuts to the orchestral score while being encouraged to believe that what happens on stage is apparently fair game for producers. I'm not sure this necessarily represents progress.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

davidglasgow said:


> Wagner's Brabant as represented in the libretto is probably not historically accurate: it will almost inevitably tell us more about Wagner's 19th century point of view than a historical reality. But if we are so unhappy with Wagner's representation and deliberately include anachronisms and inch closer to saying that not only is the locale _approximate_ but actually _incidental_, it will at some point stop being Wagner's _Lohengrin_. Which is fine, as long as you drop his name off the program...


So if you go to see a concert production of Lohengrin, you're not going to see Lohengrin, because Wagner imagined a staged setting with singers moving and emoting? Would you argue that we should take Wagner's name off a concert performance?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> So if you go to see a concert production of Lohengrin, you're not going to see Lohengrin, because Wagner imagined a staged setting with singers moving and emoting? Would you argue that we should take Wagner's name off a concert performance?


By that crooked logic we should also drop the composer's name off a recording of an opera because it doesn't give us everything he imagined for the work.

The argument is about stagings that misrepresent and clash with the composer's meanings as expressed in the score and libretto. I think most of us, listening to the score at home or in concert, are quite capable of experiencing those meanings in the "theater of the mind." But if we do want to imagine, in the privacy of our minds, _Aida_ taking place on Mars, that's our prerogative; at least we won't be presenting an expensive travesty of the opera to the world.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I mean that what exists on stage is not the only expression of this scene. 

No one is saying that any production has to be.

Seeing pink rats doesn't mean that every other production has pink rats. Or that one's own conception of it has to be nothing but pink rats.

One's own conception can be anything one wants it to be. What's on stage should respect the composer.

I'm honestly not even sure I've heard the Bridal Chorus more in the context of the opera _Lohengrin_ than recontextualized as a processional in other wedding, real life and fictional. SFO did a Wagner Choral Concert during each cycle of the Ring and the choral director introduced this piece as Elsa being led to her wedding ceremony (a processional with the end of Act 2 might be fun). But at any rate due to Princess Victoria and Frederick (and so on) we're going to have other associations with this scene.

No one's associations matter. In the actual opera called _Lohengrin_ this music is for a beautiful procession of women.

At any rate, I don't look at it and ask "is this a perfect representation of this scene?" Not every production has to have every element done perfectly; that's really constricting. 

How is making everything as true to the meaning of the drama as possible constricting? What else do you find constricting? Playing all the notes perfectly?

There were rats before and there are going to be rats afterward, so it makes sense contextually within this production (at the very least). 

So if there are already rats we may as well just give in and let them overrun the place?

I would like to explore where lines are drawn between the idea that the music perfectly evokes the scene and it being ruined by having something else on stage. 

There are no sharp lines in art. What we do depends on our taste and our integrity.

Similarly it should be the common compulsion to stage narration, and the inevitable response that doing so is unnecessary because it's already there. (I often think that staging narration is a bad idea, or at least often find it done poorly).

Case by case. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. A similar case would be staging overtures. This is overdone now, as if people can't just listen to music and let it make its own points.

If you had the chorus and supers in rat costumes, how would you stage this chorus? I think putting the rats in gowns or having them throw rice or flowers might have made it seem more of a mockery.

So you've accepted the inevitability of rodent infestation?

What I like about Neuenfels' _Lohengrin_ is not how well it does with the bridal chorus. But up above I was going to say that really nothing one sees on stage is going to remove the image of non-operatic weddings from the heads of many people... but if anything can, perhaps pink rats would do the trick. That is, the non-traditional representation, the unexpected imagery can get one out of comparing the chorus on stage to real or fictional weddings one has seen and into the current staging (or at least it may be possible for those that are going with the concept).

Oh come on. Stage it beautifully and let people say, "Wow! I never really appreciated this piece before!" It actually is a lovely piece of music, isn't it? But not with vermin. Not even pink vermin.


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## davidglasgow (Aug 19, 2017)

howlingfantods said:


> So if you go to see a concert production of Lohengrin, you're not going to see Lohengrin, because Wagner imagined a staged setting with singers moving and emoting? Would you argue that we should take Wagner's name off a concert performance?


With a concert performance you are only seeing _part_ of what Wagner intended, and the same with sound recordings: we know Wagner in particular wanted people to see his operas fully staged - he wanted his audience to make a pilgrimage to Bayreuth, specially built to accommodate his specific demands for how the orchestra should sound and detailed ideas on staging. We can argue it is hubristic, inegalitarian and ultimately unrealistic but that's what he wanted.

The thread's topic about bad stagings addresses the concern that unlike concerts and recordings, bad stagings aren't just _incomplete_ views of the opera but actively contradict what is being sung, what is in the libretto and score. That's when authorship comes into question: who is in charge -composer or producer?

There are all sorts of questions about the pros and cons of taking opera _out_ of the opera house and giving it in concert or the recording studio - as an audience we're still trying to make peace with that after 100 years. That's a whole discussion to itself and the challenges of shifting from one medium to another.

However, the question on this thread has been when directors _in_ the opera house flout conventions to the extent that what's on stage doesn't concur with what is in the libretto, what is played in the pit. If this does not happen, opera is not living up to what it can be - a complete entertainment with acting and singing and music working together - and more prosaically it's not telling the story we bought tickets to see _and_ hear.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

davidglasgow said:


> With a concert performance you are only seeing _part_ of what Wagner intended, and the same with sound recordings: we know Wagner in particular wanted people to see his operas fully staged - he wanted his audience to make a pilgrimage to Bayreuth, specially built to accommodate his specific demands for how the orchestra should sound and detailed ideas on staging. We can argue it is hubristic, inegalitarian and ultimately unrealistic but that's what he wanted.


The Wagner family actually prohibited anyone but Bayreuth from putting on Parsifal. So when we watch a regie version of Parsifal at Bayreuth versus a Shenkian museum piece at the Met, who is honoring Wagner's wishes and intentions more? Should we take Wagner's name off the ads for Parsifals outside Bayreuth?

I find this discussion pretty pointless to be honest. I don't believe the opera houses are run by people who are trying to minimize ticket sales; they're doing what they need to do to come as close to filling the houses as possible, and if we see a lot of regie in Europe and less regie in America, I suspect that indicates that regie is what's needed to fill the seats in Europe, and it's less needed in America. One could surmise that in a place like Berlin where opera goers may be more habitual attendees who attend more frequently, they need directors who will put some new garb on these old warhorses; in America, where people go less frequently, they can just roll out a trad production and they'll get their usual smaller audiences.


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## davidglasgow (Aug 19, 2017)

howlingfantods said:


> The Wagner family actually prohibited anyone but Bayreuth from putting on Parsifal. So when we watch a regie version of Parsifal at Bayreuth versus a Shenkian museum piece at the Met, who is honoring Wagner's wishes and intentions more? Should we take Wagner's name off the ads for Parsifals outside Bayreuth?


Asking which option is a worse fit - a regie production in the space Wagner wanted or a bad traditional production in a space Wagner didn't intend - only helps so much. The challenge is that these compromised solutions are often suggested as the only options available. A good traditional production in Bayreuth remains -as when it was built- the closest we can guess to what Wagner dictated: it would be nice to have the option but traditional settings seem to be out of fashion with producers.

Re: Parsifal outside Bayreuth, maybe Wagner had a point and a lot is lost in that move? The question I asked previously was if multiple compromises come together is there a point where it stops serving what Wagner wrote in the libretto and score. I'm not personally convinced that taking it out of Bayreuth _and_ forgoing a tradition production in favour of regie necessarily shows the work in it's best light.



> I find this discussion pretty pointless to be honest. I don't believe the opera houses are run by people who are trying to minimize ticket sales; they're doing what they need to do to come as close to filling the houses as possible, and if we see a lot of regie in Europe and less regie in America, I suspect that indicates that regie is what's needed to fill the seats in Europe, and it's less needed in America. One could surmise that in a place like Berlin where opera goers may be more habitual attendees who attend more frequently, they need directors who will put some new garb on these old warhorses; in America, where people go less frequently, they can just roll out a trad production and they'll get their usual smaller audiences.


We know that opera management want to fill houses and make money - the question is if they are sacrificing quality with too many bad regie productions slipping through the cracks in the haste to be attention-grabbing. If habitual audiences are bored and producers are clutching at straws when preparing the old warhorses then maybe pick other repertoire for a few seasons.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

davidglasgow said:


> We know that opera management want to fill houses and make money - the question is if they are sacrificing quality with too many bad regie productions slipping through the cracks in the haste to be attention-grabbing. If habitual audiences are bored and producers are clutching at straws when preparing the old warhorses then maybe pick other repertoire for a few seasons.


I'm pretty sure non-standard rep isn't the solution to empty seats. There's a reason every opera company trots out Traviata and Carmen every couple of years--only stars and warhorses sell out the house.

The essential problem is that this is a dead art form. There's not a work that's entered the core repertoire in a century. If you refuse to let any creativity and newness in the staging and settings, there's nothing new to see. Notice how movie theaters don't show the same movies forever? Impresarios need to offer something new to get people to buy tickets; there's no new repertoire, so the only option is new stagings and settings--in other words, regie.

If anything, opera fans should be grateful for regie, even if they themselves don't enjoy those types of productions. This is one of the strategies keeping this dying art form on life support.


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## OperaChic (Aug 26, 2015)

howlingfantods said:


> I find this discussion pretty pointless to be honest.


Interesting. Maybe you can point out a more productive discussion on this forum. I thought this was about people stating their preferences and giving their reasons. While some seem to presume that those who are against regie productions are simple-minded reactionaries, there are very valid reasons why many regietheatre is controversial among opera lovers. Many of those reasons have been eloquently stated in this thread, and haven't been contradicted.



> I don't believe the opera houses are run by people who are trying to minimize ticket sales; they're doing what they need to do to come as close to filling the houses as possible, and if we see a lot of regie in Europe and less regie in America, I suspect that indicates that regie is what's needed to fill the seats in Europe, and it's less needed in America. One could surmise that in a place like Berlin where opera goers may be more habitual attendees who attend more frequently, they need directors who will put some new garb on these old warhorses; in America, where people go less frequently, they can just roll out a trad production and they'll get their usual smaller audiences.


One could surmise that. I've also read various sources that claim that European opera companies are subsidized by the government, so they are not dependent upon ticket sales for their primary income, unlike American companies. If there are a few people out there who have seen so many productions of their favorite operas staged how their creators envisioned them that they have become bored with "traditional" productions, I'm a little envious they have that kind of time, money and opportunity. I'm not sure that means that to satisfy these jaded spectators everyone else has to suffer through trying to analyze hodgepodges and interpretive puzzles, or that those who are attending an opera for the first time have to leave in a state of confusion over the plot because what they saw had little to no relation to what they heard.



> The essential problem is that this is a dead art form. There's not a work that's entered the core repertoire in a century. If you refuse to let any creativity and newness in the staging and settings, there's nothing new to see. Notice how movie theaters don't show the same movies forever? Impresarios need to offer something new to get people to buy tickets; there's no new repertoire, so the only option is new stagings and settings--in other words, regie.


This has already been addressed, and is simply a straw man argument. Creating a production with a new and imaginative setting for an opera does not need to mean using an opera to convey a director's conception of the work, or to make it visually unrecognizable and dramatically incomprehensible. Regie is not the only answer. Great operas that have been part of the standard repertory have been rethought and updated throughout the centuries, yet regietheatre has only been prominent for the past 40 years or so.



> If anything, opera fans should be grateful for regie, even if they themselves don't enjoy those types of productions. This is one of the strategies keeping this dying art form on life support.


Forgive me for not being grateful to regie productions for misrepresenting or spoofing powerful works of art and putting on post-modern deconstructions that I have no patience for or interest in. If regietheatre really is the only thing keeping opera alive, I'll gladly be the first to pull the plug. But since there are still great operas like John Adam's Nixon in China, Kaija Saariaho's L'Amour de loin, and George Benjamin's Written on Skin being composed, and we are in a situation where there isn't one DVD of an opera like Tristan und Isolde available that presents the opera as written in the libretto and observes Wagner's stage directions, luckily there's still plenty out there in the opera world that I'm happy to see and hoping I'll be able see without having to resort to regie productions.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I have to wonder how long it will take for opera from the late 20th century onwards to be given the 'regie-regie theatre' treatment.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

OperaChic said:


> we are in a situation where there isn't one DVD of an opera like Tristan und Isolde available that presents the opera as written in the libretto and observes Wagner's stage directions, luckily there's still plenty out there in the opera world that I'm happy to see and hoping I'll be able see without having to resort to regie productions.


I wonder how many opera goers have ever seen a beautifully designed, evocatively lit, well-acted production of any Wagner opera that essentially preserves the settings and action he asks for. Have there been enough such productions for anyone to tire of them?


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## OperaChic (Aug 26, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I wonder how many opera goers have ever seen a beautifully designed, evocatively lit, well-acted production of any Wagner opera that essentially preserves the settings and action he asks for. Have there been enough such productions for anyone to tire of them?


Frankly I feel fortunate that I live near Sarasota, Florida where the opera company prides itself in staging alluring and faithful productions and I was able to attend a performance of The Flying Dutchman that was visually stunning and dramatically satisfying. However, the small theater and limited budget of the company would make it difficult if not impossible to stage any of Wagner's more elaborate music dramas post-Lohengrin, and I fear I may never get to see a production of The Ring or Tristan in person that reflects his vision.

I have, however, seen at least 4 or 5 "traditional" productions of La Boheme, all by different directors yet all immensely attractive in their depiction of Puccini's masterpiece, and don't find myself bored of the opera or the same general visual approach yet.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

OperaChic said:


> I'm not sure that means that to satisfy these jaded spectators everyone else has to suffer through trying to analyze hodgepodges and interpretive puzzles, or that those who are attending an opera for the first time have to leave in a state of confusion over the plot because what they saw had little to no relation to what they heard.


So your theory is that many of those spending thousands on purchasing a ticket to Bayreuth to sit in a hot unventilated box to spend more thousands on tickets are doing so as a first experience of Wagner's operas? You think people saw the Castorf ring and decided the Ring wasn't for them because they weren't familiar with the opera?

The reason I find this particular topic silly is that these "I hate regie" threads always completely ignore the social & economic conditions under which this particular artform lives. Opera impresarios couldn't care any less about what internet forum posters say about whether they like regie or not, and clearly there's a healthy audience for it--these impresarios wouldn't be staging these productions if they weren't selling tickets. Moreover, they wouldn't be staging these productions if they could be selling more tickets to non-regie versions.



OperaChic said:


> This has already been addressed, and is simply a straw man argument. Creating a production with a new and imaginative setting for an opera does not need to mean using an opera to convey a director's conception of the work, or to make it visually unrecognizable and dramatically incomprehensible. Regie is not the only answer. Great operas that have been part of the standard repertory have been rethought and updated throughout the centuries, yet regietheatre has only been prominent for the past 40 years or so.


This whole thread is full of people who *are* claiming that any staging with anything other than the absolute literal setting and stage directions--i.e. a "new and imaginative setting"--is an abhorrent violation . Perhaps you are more open to interpretation than the others in this thread, but I think it's pretty unfair and inaccurate to say that I'm making a straw man argument.


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## OperaChic (Aug 26, 2015)

howlingfantods said:


> So your theory is that many of those spending thousands on purchasing a ticket to Bayreuth to sit in a hot unventilated box to spend more thousands on tickets are doing so as a first experience of Wagner's operas? You think people saw the Castorf ring and decided the Ring wasn't for them because they weren't familiar with the opera?


Bayreuth is the only theater where regie is prevalent? Regie has by and large become the norm, and I think the main argument against it is there are those who are not sure that in the process of trying to make these operas "relevant" to modern audiences, we haven't impeded their ability to communicate to us in a more direct way and on a more profound level.

I have a hard time believing that if Bayreuth did put on traditional productions, the audience would suddenly dry up. The orchestra city I grew up in put on a performance of Beethoven's 9th every year at Christmas, and every year the performance sold out. It was one of the few concerts where there was a sell out. I'm sure a majority of those attending had heard the symphony before. I never heard anyone complain that it was an excellent performance of the same exact work they had heard in the past.



> The reason I find this particular topic silly is that these "I hate regie" threads always completely ignore the social & economic conditions under which this particular artform lives. Opera impresarios couldn't care any less about what internet forum posters say about whether they like regie or not, and clearly there's a healthy audience for it--these impresarios wouldn't be staging these productions if they weren't selling tickets. Moreover, they wouldn't be staging these productions if they could be selling more tickets to non-regie versions.


Whether there is an audience for it is another question -- and I don't think anyone has denied there is an audience for it. Personally, I don't really care about the social and economic conditions when I'm evaluating something's aesthetic and artistic merit.



> This whole thread is full of people who *are* claiming that any staging with anything other than the absolute literal setting and stage directions--i.e. a "new and imaginative setting"--is an abhorrent violation . Perhaps you are more open to interpretation than the others in this thread, but I think it's pretty unfair and inaccurate to say that I'm making a straw man argument.


I think the position of those people on the other side of the argument have generally been a little more nuanced than that what you're depicting them as being.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> This whole thread is full of people who *are* claiming that any staging with anything other than the absolute literal setting and stage directions--i.e. a "new and imaginative setting"--is an abhorrent violation .


I don't recall anyone claiming that. I think almost every theater goer enjoys productions that exhibit fresh visual imagery and allow actors, singers and directors to express their personal sense of the characters and the drama. Composers don't ordinarily give detailed directions for sets, costumes, and action; I don't think they typically have narrow ideas about how their operas should look, and there's no reason we should either. What bothers people is productions that turn an opera into something markedly different from what the libretto and music suggest.

Maybe some people who attend the theater constantly become bored with certain works and need to have their boredom relieved by extreme re-imaginings and outrageous shenanigans. That's unfortunate, but perhaps the better solution for them is to let a bit more time pass between exposures to the works they're tired of. Or maybe they just don't care greatly for those operas to begin with. But that seems a poor excuse for depriving others of the (possibly rare) opportunity of seeing something the composer might understand and approve.

Speaking for myself, I can imagine certain operas using visual imagery quite different from anything the composer could have imagined, and doing so with great dramatic integrity. I think Wieland Wagner must have done this, judging from photos of his productions. His simple, abstract _Parsifal,_ for example, is austerely beautiful and was almost universally acclaimed. But spare me swastikas, transsexual Parsifals, and other such nonsense.


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## davidglasgow (Aug 19, 2017)

> The reason I find this particular topic silly is that these "I hate regie" threads always completely ignore the social & economic conditions under which this particular artform lives


Is the problem lexical? If, instead of calling them 'traditional productions' they were called 'historically-informed performances using original instruments and authentic stagings' would the regie-as-only-commercially-viable-option-theory not need seriously re-assessed?

Look at the major releases for studio recordings- many are Vivaldi, Rossini, Mozart, Handel - using authentic practices and _they_ must be selling? You suggest that "the social & economic conditions" of today need factored in: HIP is selling today, so let's see more of those creative ideas in the core repertoire.

For some reason there is a cut-off-line which means that Historically Informed Performance is laudable and encouraged in some operas but not after some arbitrary date.

If 'traditional' productions have all the negative associations you suggest, call them HIP and see where that goes. We've had Harnoncourt conducting _Aida_ and Gardiner conducting _Falstaff_ on record - perhaps the time is ripe for an authentic 19th century orchestral sound in Wagner. This thread suggests there is an appetite for something different and regie is not always the answer while _bad_ regie is something akin to visiting the dentist.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

davidglasgow said:


> Is the problem lexical? If, instead of calling them 'traditional productions' they were called 'historically-informed performances using original instruments and authentic stagings' would the regie-as-only-commercially-viable-option-theory not need seriously re-assessed?
> 
> Look at the major releases for studio recordings- many are Vivaldi, Rossini, Mozart, Handel - using authentic practices and _they_ must be selling? You suggest that "the social & economic conditions" of today need factored in: HIP is selling today, so let's see more of those creative ideas in the core repertoire.
> 
> ...


An interesting idea, but I think it would succeed only as an occasional curiosity. An "authentic" sound in musical performance - I put it in quotes because we can only make educated guesses about how music was performed in pre-recording times - will be much easier to enjoy than replicas of outdated staging or acting styles, which in many cases would strike most people now as unconvincing, quaint, or even comical. Have you seen photos of the original 1876 _Ring_ cycle? Would you want the Rhinemaidens to look like that? Or move about on the Bayreuth swimming machines? Would you enjoy the broad gestures of 19th-century acting, performed in front of painted backdrops? Can we doubt that composers and audiences of past centuries would have been thrilled with modern theatrical technology and the magical effects, beyond realism, that it can achieve? We can do much more to solve in interesting ways the problems of staging theater works of earlier times than could be done then. Adolphe Appia was already rethinking the staging of Wagner in terms of light and space before 1900, and its a pity Wagner didn't live to see what he had in mind.

You're probably familiar with the revival of the original staging and choreography to Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring._ 



 It's a worthwhile endeavor and a valuable cultural artifact, but I dare say that nothing like it would occur to anyone listening to the music today.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

These discussions of regie in opera always strike me as so belated. The same debates took place regarding Shakespeare--about a hundred years ago.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

amfortas said:


> These discussions of regie in opera always strike me as so belated. The same debates took place regarding Shakespeare--about a hundred years ago.


Sorry for being disappointed that Polione looked like a boring businessman when I saw Norma.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Sloe said:


> Sorry for being disappointed that Polione looked like a boring businessman when I saw Norma.


I'm not saying you shouldn't feel that way. Just pointing out that spoken theatre went through all of this a century ago, and seems to have come out more or less intact.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

We got what? About 70 years of traditional/faithful Wagner productions before the second world war. Then Wieland Wagner, partly in an attempt to free his grandfather's work from the appropriation it had suffered by the Nazis, stopped using the traditional stagings, going heavily symbolic/minimalist. Occasionally illuminating some of Wagner's acknowledged sub-texts....

And now we have had more than 70 years of Regietheater. I, for one, think we are ready to go back to the traditional/faithful stagings. Nobody alive is "bored" with them. We haven't had much of a chance to see them.


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