# Unusual Opera Staging



## shsherm (Jan 24, 2008)

Last night I attended a performance of Wagner's Siegfried performed by LA opera. The sets and direction were by Achim Freyer and I had also seen the operas he had directed last season-Das Rheingold and Die Valkure. One must suspend disbelief to see these stagings. The sets and costumes made me think of Dali meets Picasso. They are beyond avant garde. Some Wagner devotees have decided that they like them after all. The cost of these productions were $32 million. I was told by an insider that this production will not likely be repeated by another opera company because of the cost. The most freakish performance of any Wagner opera I ever saw was a video of Parsifal performed in Beyreuth in which the A Nazi theme was used and Nazi uniforms as well as decorations were used. I would like to know any other instances of extraordinary opera staging other people are aware of.


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## scytheavatar (Aug 27, 2009)

I have no idea how unusual or avant garde the Ring you saw is, but the most non-conventional Ring I have seen is the Copenhagen Ring:

http://www.amazon.com/Copenhagen-Ri...ef=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1256008907&sr=8-1

Then one of my favourite eurotrash opera is the good old 2005 Salzburg Festival La Traviata. I think that is the only "unusual" opera which I have seen people like.


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## nickgray (Sep 28, 2008)

Yeah, those good-for-nothing modern stage directors love to brutalize operas. Especially Wagner's operas. Makes me wanna strangle those guys for some reason. Hell, one time on Mezzo I've seen a staging that included what appeared to be a Brunhilde dressed like a hooker and Wotan that looked like... errr... I can't even describe that, like an old fat guy that looked a bit like a Mafioso (don't ask...). Needless to say, I turned off the tv as soon as humanly possible.


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## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

Hah, Brussels, La monnaie, 2009: Rusalka.

Stage: a '60s street, on the one hand a diner wich had a bar that extended itself to the center of stage and retracted into the diner, on the other side a sex shop with occasionally dancing dolls. A bit deeper onscene people going in and out of a subway station. At some point, some lady gets trolleyd down from the ceiling (I felt like I was in the wrong opera house, watching the Queen of the Night), and the trolly falls five metres and gets stuck. Half hour intermission to fix the problem. At one point, it was found necessary to make a dozen confetti cannons explode, filling the audience part of the house with confetti.

And this was hailed as some kind of a brilliant setting for Rusalka (a Easter European waternymph myth). Granted, the singing was good. But please.... shoot the stage director.

But afterwards I realised: at least they didn't touch the soundscape of the piece, because:

Brussels, La monnaie, 2009: Semele.

As far as the stage goes, it was done with an eastern religious theme: they had reconstructed a bhuddist temple, wearing eastern costumes, all and well. No problem with this, since it was done in a calm, stylistic fashion (unlike the brusque setting of Rusalka). That being said, the director found it necessary to have a Donkey with overly large ***** hump one of the poles of the temple. But then, the stage director found it necessary to insert a chinese traditional song at the end of act one. Why? Why touch the soundscape of an opera? (other then that, the music was impeccable, both by an exellent orchestral preformance and the singers).


Added value is what they're always searching for over hear. They're looking in the wrong place as far as I'm concerned.


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## SalieriIsInnocent (Feb 28, 2008)

I watched Don Giovanni set in the ghetto. It wasn't exactly what I would call a masterpiece. The singing was good but come on. 

I guess I have always been used to seeing it set in Spain during the 16th century.


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## Mtl (Mar 8, 2009)

Thais by Massenet is always staged in an unusual manner. Sometimes it works... other times it doesn't.










This new DVD from a recent Teatro Regio Torino effort works (for me at least). It is sure not to be to the taste of many traditionnal opera fans, but since I am much more adventurous than traditionnal, I found this production extremely engaging. Staging and lighting are very different but extremely well carried out as well. It is a feast for the eyes and ears. What is strange to some is beautiful to others. In any case... if you want different... you will not be dissapointed. It is spectacularly different in a great many ways. Some might find it shockingly different. It is in my opinion beautifully different.


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## Guest (Oct 22, 2009)

Well, me dears, if you posit an audience that will only attend operas from the past, then the temptation for the directors and set designers of the present will be to do exactly what y'all have been talking about.

If audiences would pack the houses for Ligeti and Lachenmann and Kutavicius and Azguime and Goebbels and Eotvos, then the directors and set designers would probably rest content with old-fashioned sets and designs for the operas of the past.

That's pie-in-the-sky, I know. Still, we can always dream....


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

scytheavatar said:


> I have no idea how unusual or avant garde the Ring you saw is, but the most non-conventional Ring I have seen is the Copenhagen Ring:


If I'm not mistaken, Peter Sellars directed a puppet-show version of the Ring. Of course, he's Peter Sellars...


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

I think some modern stagings work, but most of them are just bad. I like most modern Rings - as long as they aren't directed against the music - but refuse to accept any other Wagner in futuristic settings. Oh, and try anyone come near to Verdi or Puccini and I kill. La Bohéme should never be placed into Harlem and Mimi shall not dying from AIDS. It simply destroys the atmosphere.

What probably works it abstract setting (but it shall look good) and period costumes. Most Billy Budd staging are like this and it works. But it's one of the few operas that would work in a contemporary setting too - as long as it's a ship and they wear uniforms.


The most horrible thing I ever saw was (parts) from a Lisbon Don Giovanni. It's on youtube. It's not just modern - it's disillusional, violates the music, the story, everything. Never watch it if you don't want to be shocked for life. I can't hear the final sextet without shuddering now. They MASSACRED the Don. The a razor. Everyone. And that was not the only horror part.

Besides, you can be psychological and modern with normal settings and costumes, see the Ponnelle/Barenboim Tristan. 

I think modern Rings work for me because they bring out the irony. The Gods are not so godly after all. They're thiefs, murderers, adulterers... and the Rings I saw (Chéreau, Copenhagen, London) all made the tricky parts (Feuerzauber, Forging Scene, Immolation) very good-looking. Lots and lots of fire.

But I'd like to see a traditional Ring as a movie - with a lot of CGI tricks, to make all the fantasy creatures and the impossible stage directions real. It would be the most expensive movie of the world.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Did anyone ever see the Jonathan Miller/ENO Rigoletto set in the 1950s - the Duke as a Mafioso Don and Rigoletto as his barman? For me that totally worked - the carefully protected dughter at home, the Duke doing as he pleased, the courtiers turning against Rigoletto. That's when an updating really works.


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