# Opera Regietheater: Progressive Development Or Pernicious Curse?



## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

As a new member of this forum I don't know whether this topic has been seriously grappled with here before but I suppose I'll find out right quick by posting the following which I've adapted from an article I published some years ago (2005) on my blog Sounds & Fury (S&F). It's Wagner-centric as that's my principal domain of operatic interest and also because the Bayreuther Festspiele (Bayreuth Festival) is the very birthplace of opera Regietheater. So, to begin...

A number of years ago, in a brief review I wrote for S&F of the telecast of the Met's then current production of _Die Meistersinger_, I wrote - parenthetically without giving it a second thought and merely as a matter of fact - that, "the Met is today perhaps the only major opera house in the world where one can still see Wagner's operas and music-dramas realized as Wagner envisaged them." Reflecting later on that matter of fact, the full implication of the thing struck me with unwonted force. What, I asked myself, does that mean for those who've no prior experience of these timeless, universal, and deathless works of art in their original form, and who today have almost no opportunity of ever seeing them realized as their creator intended them to be realized and therefore lack any proper point of reference? It's quite as serious a problem as would be, say, having the plays of Shakespeare available to the general public only in versions utilizing modern settings and with dialogue in modern English the opportunity of reading and/or seeing them performed in their original form nowhere to be had except within the confines of a single institution. When viewed in that light the true magnitude of the gravity of the situation today vis-à-vis Wagner's operas and music-dramas makes itself instantly manifest.

It might be thought I rhetorically overstate the case in making the above comparison. Nothing could be farther from the facts of the case. Today's postmodern realizations of Wagner's operas and music-dramas (the so-called Konzept productions of Regietheater (Director's Theater), often - and justifiably - referred to as Eurotrash) so distort the originals as to make them wholly unrecognizable as Wagner's creations were it not for the music itself being so well known. Even at that, one could almost be forgiven for imagining that some enterprising producers cum opera composers manqué have concocted musical stageworks of their own invention but incompetent to write the libretti and music for them simply hijacked Wagner's.

For Wagnerians such as myself perhaps the most galling thing of all is recognition of the fact that the genesis of those grotesque Eurotrash productions has its roots not in some underground, avant-garde byway, but within the walls of the Bayreuther Festspiele itself, the birthplace of the first full performances of _Der Ring des Nibelungen_ and _Parsifal_, both under Wagner's own direction.

There's a great deal more to say concerning Wagnerian opera and this Regietheater business but before I start running off at the mouth about it, I first need to know whether it's a topic of any real interest to this community or just a drag on the general conversation.

I look forward to your responses, if any.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

In my experience, the traditional/reggie axis is independent of the good/bad axis. 

I believe it's more common than not to do Shakespeare in modern dress these days.


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

ahammel said:


> I believe it's more common than not to do Shakespeare in modern dress these days.


Indeed it is, and more's the pity.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

it is not just Wagner that suffers this curse. Recent performances of Mozart's operas have been mauled by idiot directors according to their own fantasies, often contrary to the inspiration of the genius who created them in the first place! A recent Don Giovanni from the ROH is an example of a director so intent on putting his own ideas into it that he completely perverts Mozart's intentions!


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

DavidA said:


> it is not just Wagner that suffers this curse. Recent performances of Mozart's operas have been mauled by idiot directors according to their own fantasies, often contrary to the inspiration of the genius who created them in the first place! A recent Don Giovanni from the ROH is an example of a director so intent on putting his own ideas into it that he completely perverts Mozart's intentions!


Oh, I didn't at all mean to imply that Wagner's operas and music-dramas were Regietheater's sole targets and victims. As I explained, Wagner's works constitute my principal area of operatic interest and I am therefore most familiar with the Regietheater goings-on in that domain.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

DavidA said:


> it is not just Wagner that suffers this curse. Recent performances of Mozart's operas have been mauled by idiot directors according to their own fantasies, often contrary to the inspiration of the genius who created them in the first place! A recent Don Giovanni from the ROH is an example of a director so intent on putting his own ideas into it that he completely perverts Mozart's intentions!


All operas are victims of Regietheater.
Wagner is the victim of the most bizarre Regietheater.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

AC Douglas said:


> Indeed it is, and more's the pity.
> 
> --
> ACD
> http://www.soundsandfury.com/


Other than that is the way Shakespeare, and earlier opera, were done in their own time.
Some audience members so romanticize this that they expect that whatever the modern dress of the day from the time these things were written are somehow supposed to be museum pieces, preserved exactly as they were when first presented, and they romanticize the hell out of its being 'from another time.'

These things were, when they were written, about as contemporary as it could get in their own era, and that includes the costuming. To get that sort of import from a contemporary production is to me some kind of ideal. That they are updated would be no surprise to their creators and they would probably not object, unless a regie production attempted to add some other layer of social commentary spin upon the piece which the librettist and composers found inappropriate -- as is the case, _some times._

Like whether it is good or bad music, that is entirely dependent upon who is holding the pen that writes the piece in the first place, so it is with opera directors, they're in varying degrees from terrific to dreadful.

I imagine a completely accurate reproduced staging as Wagners operas were staged would be next to embarrasing, the posturing of a singer stopping to sing in an artificial pose, the inevitably awkwardly dated sets which so fired the period audiences imagination would look embarrassingly corny and dated, while the period instruments, and the odder exotics in the orchestra could well enliven any current performance.

I have no sympathy or empathy with any who want and need the (inaccurately assumed) period dress of the day when these works were still written and assume and expect that is the way it should be today -- if they want that, there are dozens of gunked up period films which make a similar sentimental gloss -- and I have every sympathy with anybody who is presented with a really botched production.


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

PetrB said:


> I imagine a completely accurate reproduced staging as Wagners operas were staged would be next to embarrasing....


Way more than embarrassing. Laughable would be a better description. No one here that I'm aware of, least of all myself, has made such a suggestion. As to modern-dress stagings of Shakespeare, there's no point to it. It adds nothing and the many anachronisms it involves vis-à-vis the plays themselves are more often than not risible (the recent TV production of _Macbeth_ by director Rupert Goold is a good example).

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Other than that is the way Shakespeare, and earlier opera, were done in their own time.
> Some audience members so romanticize this that they expect that whatever the modern dress of the day from the time these things were written are somehow supposed to be museum pieces, preserved exactly as they were when first presented, and they romanticize the hell out of its being 'from another time.'
> 
> These things were, when they were written, about as contemporary as it could get in their own era, and that includes the costuming. To get that sort of import from a contemporary production is to me some kind of ideal. That they are updated would be no surprise to their creators and they would probably not object, unless a regie production attempted to add some other layer of social commentary spin upon the piece which the librettist and composers found inappropriate -- as is the case, _some times._
> ...


It is as you say a matter of the skill of the director. The latest Met Falstaff is an example where imaginative updating works. However, some updating simply makes the text nonsense. Figaro is one example as the plot is centred around the nobleman's right with his servant girls, something which becomes nonsense with a modern dress update. Similarly, Cosi is an Enlightenment piece set around the time women were not educated. Hence to update to modern times is anachronistic and makes the plot even more implausible.
What is completely unacceptable is a director filling the piece with his own half-baked ideas that struggle all the way against the music and libretto. In these cases the audience is being defrauded and should ask for its money back!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

DavidA said:


> It is as you say a matter of the skill of the director. The latest Met Falstaff is an example where imaginative updating works. However, some updating simply makes the text nonsense. Figaro is one example as the plot is centred around the nobleman's right with his servant girls, something which becomes nonsense with a modern dress update. Similarly, Cosi is an Enlightenment piece set around the time women were not educated. Hence to update to modern times is anachronistic and makes the plot even more implausible.
> What is completely unacceptable is a director filling the piece with his own half-baked ideas that struggle all the way against the music and libretto. In these cases the audience is being defrauded and should ask for its money back!


If it is 'bad,' or more to the point, blazingly off point, distorting whatever can be found with but a little thought and application to what the libretto and piece really is, I'm with you 100%. The regie production of some Wagner opera with the dramatis personae all costumed like Nazis, officers, storm troopers (a production in Germany) may not even have been some regie directors intent as to make any point other than to startle and outrage its audience... a travesty in the worst of taste, and an imposed 'soapbox agenda' best left to a loon holding forth in Hyde Park (a practice from whence we get 'soapbox orator.') I imagine part of that production _banked_ upon offending that German audience, coupled with the collective guilt or shame of a generation _who had nothing to do with those past events,_ and assumed (rightly, it seems) that the guilt or shame would prevent those audiences from booing the production to a halt, or walking out in droves, either sort of action which I would have taken moments after the visual presentation of that production was seen.

People have become far too passive and polite about such productions. They sit through them, thinking to boo the sets, costumes and production itself is to hurt the musician's feelings, etc. Nonsense. Those musicians, including guest soloists, are on a contract where they could get both fined and fired for breaking contract if they refused to participate -- i.e. they really have no voice in what the production is or if they object to it (nor should they, really.) It is then not "not nice, or disrespectful" for an audience to take up the standard and volubly let the opera management know they will have no truck with such dreadful productions, and make their collective voice heard.

There is very human trait which makes for this dynamic / phenomenon:
The purchaser of a ticket, often the higher the cost of that seat the more the following is true, will sit through to the bitter end of some dreadfully bad performances, egregiously directed music theater pieces, thinking to leave early, walk out, etc. is somehow getting that much less, wasting their money. Hey, 'this is dreadful,' means the money is already spent, and there is no point in adding time ill spent to money already ill spent. That is only racking up negative costs.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

I suppose the problem isn't so much that regie productions are uniformly bad as that when they are bad there's the potential for them to go horribly, calamitously, hilariously off the rails, whereas a bad traditional staging is merely boring.


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

To clear up what is a common misunderstanding concerning those of us who object to Regietheater, a misunderstanding evidenced in the above first post by *PetrB*, our objections have *little or nothing* to do with prior stagings of the work concerned that might be considered more "authentic". It has entirely to do with today's opera directors not only not doing their proper job but in fact corrupting the very foundation of that job. And what is the foundation of the opera director's job? As I've frequently put it elsewhere (on S&F), it is to discover, to the utmost capacity of his gift, the most vivid and compelling way to realize onstage the full sense and spirit of the _opera creator's_ concept and vision, not the opera director's own, as made manifest in the score (music, text, and stage directions). Attempting anything beyond that involves the opera director operating within territory he has no business even so much as stepping foot into much less messing about with.

It's all quite as straightforward as that.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

AC Douglas said:


> And what is the foundation of the opera director's job? As I've frequently put it elsewhere (on S&F), it is to discover, to the utmost capacity of his gift, the most vivid and compelling way to realize onstage the full sense and spirit of the _opera creator's_ concept and vision, not the opera director's own, as made manifest in the score (music, text, and stage directions).


That's funny, I always thought their job was to stage good opera.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I don't mind some updating in clothes and costume, and perhaps making things somewhat more contemporary, such depicting a bunch of scheming Noblemen as Conspirators in a Corporate Boardroom. It is when wholsale dramas are enacted wordlessly while the Opera is going on, frequently antithetical to the actual subject matter of the Opera and showing gratuitiously sexual and violent behavior that does nothing to enhance and everything to distract from the main subject, that I get tturned off.


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

ahammel said:


> That's funny, I always thought their [opera directors'] job was to stage good opera.


You thought wrong. Time to rethink the matter.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

PetrB said:


> If it is 'bad,' or more to the point, blazingly off point, distorting whatever can be found with but a little thought and application to what the libretto and piece really is, I'm with you 100%. The regie production of some Wagner opera with the dramatis personae all costumed like Nazis, officers, storm troopers (a production in Germany) may not even have been some regie directors intent as to make any point other than to startle and outrage its audience... a travesty in the worst of taste, and an imposed 'soapbox agenda' best left to a loon holding forth in Hyde Park (a practice from whence we get 'soapbox orator.') I imagine part of that production _banked_ upon offending that German audience, coupled with the collective guilt or shame of a generation _who had nothing to do with those past events,_ and assumed (rightly, it seems) that the guilt or shame would prevent those audiences from booing the production to a halt, or walking out in droves, either sort of action which I would have taken moments after the visual presentation of that production was seen.
> 
> People have become far too passive and polite about such productions. They sit through them, thinking to boo the sets, costumes and production itself is to hurt the musician's feelings, etc. Nonsense. Those musicians, including guest soloists, are on a contract where they could get both fined and fired for breaking contract if they refused to participate -- i.e. they really have no voice in what the production is or if they object to it (nor should they, really.) It is then not "not nice, or disrespectful" for an audience to take up the standard and volubly let the opera management know they will have no truck with such dreadful productions, and make their collective voice heard.
> 
> ...


The thing that will make these clowns come to order is when people actually demand their money back! When management starts getting some real aggravation then they might take notice. Of course, the best thing is for the public to simply boycott these dreadful misappropriations.


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

DavidA said:


> The thing that will make these clowns come to order is when people actually demand their money back! When management starts getting some real aggravation then they might take notice. Of course, the best thing is for the public to simply boycott these dreadful misappropriations.


Quite right. Or as I previously put the matter (on S&F) vis-à-vis Hans Neuenfels's so-called "Rat" _Lohengrin_ for the Bayreuth Festival:

=== Begin Quote ===
Once an opera's copyright lapses and the work enters the public domain it's perfectly fair game for opera directors to make of and do with what they will and the resulting new work judged on its own terms. What they may NOT do, however, is call, bill, promote, or otherwise represent their new show as a new staging of the original opera creator's show. To do so is to perpetrate a fraud; one that should be actionable at law. The so-called "Rat" _Lohengrin_ is not by any stretch or twisting of fact Wagner's _Lohengrin_. It is Hans Neuenfels's _Lohengrin_ with Wagner's music and text hijacked for its (Neuenfels's show's) own use the show then fraudulently represented as a new staging of Wagner's _Lohengrin_.
=== End Quote ===

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

AC Douglas said:


> To clear up what is a common misunderstanding concerning those of us who object to Regietheater, a misunderstanding evidenced in the above first post by *PetrB*, our objections have *little or nothing* to do with prior stagings of the work concerned that might be considered more "authentic". It has entirely to do with today's opera directors not only not doing their proper job but in fact corrupting the very foundation of that job. And what is the foundation of the opera director's job? As I've frequently put it elsewhere (on S&F), it is to discover, to the utmost capacity of his gift, the most vivid and compelling way to realize onstage the full sense and spirit of the _opera creator's_ concept and vision, not the opera director's own, as made manifest in the score (music, text, and stage directions). Attempting anything beyond that involves the opera director operating within territory he has no business even so much as stepping foot into much less messing about with.
> 
> It's all quite as straightforward as that.
> 
> ...


Is it really that straightforward?

A case in point. In the review referenced in your first post, you discuss the 1951 New Bayreuth production of The Ring, in which Wieland Wagner jettisoned the stage conventions of his grandfather's time in favor of a pared-down Modernist sensibility. You praised this initial foray into Regietheater for the way it "made manifest to the audience in the most intimate way imaginable Richard Wagner's deepest interior vision of the Ring."

But do you think Wagner himself would have embraced his grandson's work--and does it matter? Even though Wagner said, as you point out, that his music "shall sound in a way that people shall hear what they cannot see," such an expectation didn't prompt him to mount his works on a bare platform; he took great pains over his highly romanticized stage settings, just as he did in designing a new type of theater to house them. I find it doubtful he would be anything but appalled at his grandson's later take on the operas, or would be assuaged by assurances that his "deepest interior vision" was being respected.

Or course, no one can say with certainty how Wagner (or any composer) might react to a later era's innovations; trying to please the long-since dead would reduce anything other than the most slavishly "authentic" operatic production to a fruitless guessing game. So if faithfulness to an artist's "deepest interior vision" can result in something the artist himself wouldn't have recognized or embraced, it seems to me our attempts to define that vision are necessarily subjective, a matter of perhaps widely differing opinions. Even such a radical Regie director as the Catalan bad boy Calixto Bieito has described at least some of his work in terms of getting at the heart of the composer's true intentions. You and I may scoff at such a claim, of course, but how can we be sure our own understanding of a given work maintains such faithfulness?

I don't mean to suggest, by the way, that one can't or shouldn't stage or critique a production with such a standard in mind. But I would submit that, in practice, your crucial distinction is not quite as straightforward as you suggest.


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

amfortas said:


> Is it really that straightforward?
> 
> A case in point. In the review referenced in your first post, you discuss the 1951 New Bayreuth staging of The Ring, in which Wieland Wagner jettisoned the stage conventions of his grandfather's time in favor of a pared-down Modernist sensibility. You praised this initial foray into Regietheater for the way it "made manifest to the audience in the most intimate way imaginable Richard Wagner's deepest interior vision of the Ring."
> 
> ...


As I wrote, the crucial distinction is whether in his (or her) new staging the opera director "discover[ed], to the utmost capacity of his gift, the most vivid and compelling way to realize onstage the full sense and spirit of the opera creator's concept and vision, not the opera director's own, as made manifest in the score (music, text, and stage directions)." This Wieland did and did superbly well. So, yes, I submit it's just as straightforward as I declared it to be.

As to whether Wagner himself would have embraced Wieland's staging, I imagine not. When it came to stage presentation as opposed to the rest of it, in his head Wagner was trapped in his own time and could not even begin to envision anything as abstract as Wieland's staging working. Does that matter? Not in the least as Wieland's world is a whole other world of design; one of which Wagner was thoroughly immaculate.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

AC Douglas said:


> As I wrote, the crucial distinction is whether in his (or her) new staging the opera director "discover[ed], to the utmost capacity of his gift, the most vivid and compelling way to realize onstage the full sense and spirit of the opera creator's concept and vision, not the opera director's own, as made manifest in the score (music, text, and stage directions)." This Wieland did and did superbly well. So, yes, I submit it's just as straightforward as I declared it to be.


And again, I maintain that "the full sense and spirit of the opera creator's concept and vision . . . as made manifest in the score (music, text, and stage directions)" is not necessarily a simple thing to discern, and subject to significant disagreement. Indeed, that's partly why great works of art still challenge and fascinate us. Of course, you're free to find the matter entirely clear cut, but it's hardly surprising that others don't.


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## Fagotterdammerung (Jan 15, 2015)

I hate "reinterpretations" in the sense of stagings so altered as to make the setting unrecognizable. I don't need the Queen of the Night to be a xenomorph to enjoy Mozart.

I agree that opera needs something new and can't keep recycling the same repertoire. Want Modern opera? _Stage modern operas_. It's not like there aren't hundreds being written all the time by new composers.

However, I've found a _perfect cure_ for opera stagings I don't want to see: _I don't go to them_. So far, it's proven 100% effective. :lol:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

amfortas said:


> Is it really that straightforward?
> 
> A case in point. In the review referenced in your first post, you discuss the 1951 New Bayreuth production of The Ring, in which Wieland Wagner jettisoned the stage conventions of his grandfather's time in favor of a pared-down Modernist sensibility. You praised this initial foray into Regietheater for the way it "made manifest to the audience in the most intimate way imaginable Richard Wagner's deepest interior vision of the Ring."
> 
> .


i think the question to ask is whether the production is still true to the spirit and meaning of what the composer intended. Wieland Wagner's Ring obviously was - he just jettisoned most of the props. Whether his second Mastersingers third act was is another matter! In the recent Don Giovanni I mentioned the plot was rethought by the producer in a way Mozart or da Ponte never intended. It was definitely NOT Mozart's Don Giovanni but rather a distortion dreamed up by an idiot producer.


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

amfortas said:


> And again, I maintain that "the full sense and spirit of the opera creator's concept and vision . . . as made manifest in the score (music, text, and stage directions)" is not necessarily a simple thing to discern, and subject to significant disagreement. Indeed, that's partly why great works of art still challenge and fascinate us. Of course, you're free to find the matter entirely clear cut, but it's hardly surprising that others don't.


But Wieland's didn't depend on his "discerning...the full sense and spirit of the opera creator's concept and vision." He let Wagner's music and text do all the speaking for him! That was Wieland's stroke of genius as he couldn't possibly have been wrong or missed capturing "the full sense and spirit of the opera creator's [idealized and deepest interior] concept and vision." As I wrote in that S&F piece:

=== Begin Quote ===
Wieland's so-called New Bayreuth production of the _Ring_ - first presented in 1951 and subsequently each succeeding year thereafter through 1958 (and about which I here write as firsthand witness, Wieland's staging of _Die Walküre_ still being for me the most perfect staging of that work of my experience) - was Regietheater at its best and set a new standard for Wagner productions worldwide, showing what could be done by the use of inspired modern stagecraft in the service of Wagner's own idealized dramatic vision, that last being the key to this production's great artistic success.

With Wieland taking his (unacknowledged) cue from the groundbreaking work of the brilliant Swiss stage designer Adolphe Appia (1862-1928), the production's almost total absence of stage furniture, its use of non-period-or-place-committal costumes, and the creative use of lighting to model and shape space and the characters who inhabit it, Wieland - taking his grandfather at his word when in 1853 he declared that the yet unwritten music of the Ring "shall sound in a way that people shall hear what they cannot see" - created a neutral "frame" or "matrix" for the tetralogy, so to speak, that permitted the music itself, working in tandem with the text and the audience's own imagination, to fill in all the missing stage furniture as if it all were right in front of the audience's eyes. It was a brilliant stroke, a stroke of genius even, as it made manifest to the audience in the most intimate way imaginable Richard Wagner's deepest interior vision of the Ring while rendering Wieland's properly transparent.
=== End Quote ===

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

DavidA said:


> i think the question to ask is whether the production is still true to the spirit and meaning of what the composer intended.


Sure, but answering that question is not, I think, nearly as cut and dried as you and AC are making out. Different people will have different ideas about what the true meaning and spirit of an opera is. In most cases the composer is dead and unavailable for comment, and even if they aren't, I think there's a sense in which they don't "own" the opera anymore once it's been produced. If the composer says of a particular production "no, this isn't in the spirit which I intended" and the audience says "who cares? It's great!", well, then I'm with the audience.

To some degree, it's a matter of individual taste: one person's production that is true to the spirit and meaning of what the composer intended may well be another person's distortion dreamed up by an idiot producer.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

AC Douglas said:


> But Wieland's didn't depend on his "discerning...the full sense and spirit of the opera creator's concept and vision." He let Wagner's music and text do all the speaking for him! That was Wieland's stroke of genius as he couldn't possibly have been wrong or missed capturing "the full sense and spirit of the opera creator's [idealized and deepest interior] concept and vision."


But Wieland's solution, at least the way you characterize it, is something of a dead end, and offers limited guidance to later directors. After all, the surest way to let the music and text of any opera speak for themselves is through an unstaged concert, or better yet, audio recordings. Once you decide that a visual element can add something to the aesthetic experience, rather than simply stay out of the way, the interpretive questions I raise necessarily come into play.

And I would submit, by the way, that Wieland's staging of The Ring, in its skillful deployment of form and lighting, did in fact add to the aesthetic experience and therefore did more than simply let music and text do all the communicating. In that sense, it represents a particular interpretive approach to the work, which might contrast sharply with some other similarly minimalist production.


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

amfortas said:


> But Wieland's solution, at least the way you characterize it, is something of a dead end, and offers limited guidance to later directors. After all, the surest way to let the music and text of any opera speak for themselves is through an unstaged concert, or better yet, audio recordings. Once you decide that a visual element can add something to the aesthetic experience, rather than simply stay out of the way, the interpretive questions I raise necessarily come into play.
> 
> And I would submit, by the way, that Wieland's staging of The Ring, in its skillful deployment of form and lighting, did in fact add to the aesthetic experience and therefore did more than simply let music and text do all the communicating. In that sense, it represents a particular interpretive approach to the work, which might contrast sharply with some other similarly minimalist production.


First off, it's NOT part of an opera director's job to "offe[r] ... guidance to later directors," so let's dispense with that impertinent bit altogether, please. And of course Wieland's "skillful deployment of form and lighting, did in fact add to the aesthetic experience and therefore did more than simply let music and text do all the communicating." His stroke of genius was to accomplish that without his staging getting in the way of the music and text (i.e., he kept his staging "transparent" as I put it) but instead let them speak freely absent any diverting impediment. I'm perfectly willing to praise any staging of any opera that accomplishes that.

But opera Regietheater stagings don't do that at all today, do they. They all insist on forcing the director's own particular vision on the audience never mind that it has little or nothing to do with the vision of the opera's creator as embodied in the score. Unless one works at Regietheater stagings intellectually in the theater as the opera is playing itself out (as opposed to afterwards) to attempt to unpack whatever idea(s) of his own the director was attempting to pimp and make whatever connections one can with the opera creator's original vision as embodied in the score (assuming, of course, there are any connections to be made, never a good assumption) one is left with yet another piece of Regietheater crap that has nothing to do with the opera creator's opera and everything to do with the megalomaniacal director's "vision". It's time modern opera directors learned that first and foremost they are _SERVANTS_ who exist solely to serve the work to hand and the work's creator. PERIOD. FULL STOP.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

DavidA said:


> However, some updating simply makes the text nonsense. Figaro is one example as the plot is centred around the nobleman's right with his servant girls, something which becomes nonsense with a modern dress update. Similarly, Cosi is an Enlightenment piece set around the time women were not educated. Hence to update to modern times is anachronistic and makes the plot even more implausible.


Those are plot devices, they aren't what the opera is about. We need to understand these and many other contrivances but they don't have to fit with the setting.

Otherwise we would have to argue that _Der Rosenkavalier_ is complete nonsense. There were some waltz-like tunes in the 1740s but the titular contrivance of this opera never was a thing. Strauss and Hofmannsthal wanted the piece to feel old timey so they used waltzes - which were no longer as in fashion - and made up this nonsense about the silver rose. The action doesn't need to take place around Vienna in the 1740s for that to make sense, we just have to accept that it's a thing.

Also should Pelly's production only be used for _La figlia del reggimento_ because the Italians invaded Tyrol during the First World War but the French did not? I say no, this opera is not a precise depiction of history no matter how it is staged. The actual guts of the opera do not require everything matching historical reality. These details of the setting are not what the opera is actually about.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

AC Douglas said:


> First off, it's NOT part of an opera director's job to "offe[r] ... guidance to later directors," so let's dispense with that impertinent bit altogether, please.


It may not be an opera director's job to offer guidance to later directors, but that is nonetheless a potential effect worth considering. You yourself said this production "set a new standard for Wagner productions worldwide."



AC Douglas said:


> And of course Wieland's "skillful deployment of form and lighting, did in fact add to the aesthetic experience and therefore did more than simply let music and text do all the communicating."


So you do agree with me on this, even though you initially claimed that Wieland's production "let Wagner's music and text do all the speaking for him."



AC Douglas said:


> His stroke of genius was to accomplish that without his staging getting in the way of the music and text (i.e., he kept his staging "transparent" as I put it) but instead let them speak freely absent any diverting impediment. I'm perfectly willing to praise any staging of any opera that accomplishes that.


As am I, though you and I might not always agree as to whether a given production presents such an impediment.



AC Douglas said:


> But opera Regietheater stagings don't do that at all today, do they. They all insist on forcing the director's own particular vision on the audience never mind that it has little or nothing to do with the vision of the opera's creator as embodied in the score. Unless one works at Regietheater stagings intellectually in the theater as the opera is playing itself out (as opposed to afterwards) to attempt to unpack whatever idea(s) of his own the director was attempting to pimp and make whatever connections one can with the opera creator's original vision as embodied in the score (assuming, of course, there are any connections to be made, never a good assumption) one is left with yet another piece of Regietheater crap that has nothing to do with the opera creator's opera and everything to do with the megalomaniacal director's "vision". It's time modern opera directors learned that first and foremost they are _SERVANTS_ who exist solely to serve the work to hand and the work's creator. PERIOD. FULL STOP.


There are certainly "transparent" productions I have found very effective, for the reasons you mention, just as there are more director-centered productions I haven't taken to, again for reasons similar to yours. But that's not always the case.

This is partly because I don't see the issue in quite the either/or terms you suggest. For me , the most effective Regie productions do indeed feature a particular vision of the director, but one which at the same time sheds an intriguing new light on the original work, or at least certain aspects of it. Such a production may not do full justice to the opera as a whole (what production can?), but it may nonetheless bring out certain features of the original more pointedly than a more "transparent" production might do. In some cases the director's concept may indeed cause me to work things out intellectually as I'm watching the opera, which I confess I don't mind being asked to do. But in other cases, the impact is more immediate, the effect more visceral.

I'm not sure there's much left to dispute here: you and I respond to theatrical productions in differing ways. Of course, you're free to tell me I'm doing it wrong, and that's fine. But in the end, I doubt either of us will have much effect on what the other does or doesn't find compelling.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

ahammel said:


> Sure, but answering that question is not, I think, nearly as cut and dried as you and AC are making out. Different people will have different ideas about what the true meaning and spirit of an opera is. In most cases the composer is dead and unavailable for comment, and even if they aren't, I think there's a sense in which they don't "own" the opera anymore once it's been produced. If the composer says of a particular production "no, this isn't in the spirit which I intended" and the audience says "who cares? It's great!", well, then I'm with the audience.
> 
> To some degree, it's a matter of individual taste: one person's production that is true to the spirit and meaning of what the composer intended may well be another person's distortion dreamed up by an idiot producer.


Obviously there are different takes on the same opera. That's what make productions interesting. But the intentions of the composer can be found simply by reading the libretto and listening to a recording of which there are many these days. The producer of the ROH Don Giovanni had actually altered the thing to make it fit with his misguided concept.


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

amfortas said:


> I'm not sure there's much left to dispute here: you and I respond to theatrical productions in differing ways. Of course, you're free to tell me I'm doing it wrong, and that's fine. But in the end, I doubt either of us will have much effect on what the other does or doesn't find compelling.


And so it always goes in matters such as this. (And not so BTW, I would never think of telling you you're "doing it wrong" whatever "it" might refer to here. Where operagoers are concerned, in matters such as this there's no right or wrong way for them to do "it".)

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

DavidA said:


> [T]he intentions of the [opera] composer can be found simply by reading the libretto and listening to a recording of which there are many these days.


No, reading the libretto (which is merely the opera's armature) is by no stretch the way one discovers the intentions of the opera composer (i.e., the opera's creator), and listening to recordings is no help at all as one can get only another's understanding of that. One must study the _score_ (music, text, and stage directions) in order to discover what the opera's creator (i.e., the composer) was after. Reading the libretto is what most Regietheater opera directors do and imagine that from that they know all they need to know in order to stage the opera. I'm certain I needn't point out to you just how wrong an approach that is.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

AC Douglas said:


> No, reading the libretto (which is merely the opera's armature) is by no stretch the way one discovers the intentions of the opera composer (i.e., the opera's creator), and listening to recordings is no help at all as one can get only another's understanding of that. One must study the _score_ (music, text, and stage directions) in order to discover what the opera's creator (i.e., the composer) was after. Reading the libretto is what most Regietheater opera directors do and imagine that from that they know all they need to know in order to stage the opera. I'm certain I needn't point out to you just how wrong an approach that is.
> 
> --
> ACD
> http://www.soundsandfury.com/


Actually many directors would be nonplussed by the score probably! You can usually only read a score properly if you are a trained orchestral musician. I would have thought it obvious that by libretto I also meant stage directions which are included in any full libretto. The problem comes with producers becoming the masters rather than the servants of the drama.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

AC Douglas said:


> No, reading the libretto (which is merely the opera's armature) is by no stretch the way one discovers the intentions of the opera composer (i.e., the opera's creator), and listening to recordings is no help at all as one can get only another's understanding of that. One must study the _score_ (music, text, and stage directions) in order to discover what the opera's creator (i.e., the composer) was after. Reading the libretto is what most Regietheater opera directors do and imagine that from that they know all they need to know in order to stage the opera. I'm certain I needn't point out to you just how wrong an approach that is.


It would be interesting to learn more about the approaches of Regie directors, which I suspect can vary quite a bit. Stefan Herheim, for example, clearly pays close attention to the music (whether from the score or recordings, I couldn't say). Whatever one thinks, for example, of his Bayreuth _Parsifal_--perhaps the most acclaimed (and controversial) Regie production of the past decade--one can't help but acknowledge the way his directorial choices are meticulously synchronized with the music. People may still criticize his understanding of both text and music, of course, but they can't claim he hasn't devoted study to them.


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

amfortas said:


> [Regietheater Director] Stefan Herheim ... clearly pays close attention to the music.... Whatever one thinks, for example, of his Bayreuth _Parsifal_--perhaps the most acclaimed (and controversial) Regie production of the past decade--one can't help but acknowledge the way his directorial choices are meticulously synchronized with the music. People may still criticize his understanding of both text and music, of course, but they can't claim he hasn't devoted study to them.


Yes, it's clear Herheim pays close attention to the music, an anomaly when it comes to Regietheater opera directors. I, too, was impressed by his Bayreuth _Parsifal_, fraud though it was (but by no stretch the most controversial Regie production of the past decade), which I saw in full as put on the Net by the Bayreuth Festival itself. I wrote (on S&F) at the time:

=== Begin Quote ===
Just finished watching the HD (720p) videos of the transmission from the Bayreuther Festspiele of Stefan Herheim's Eurotrash (i.e., _Konzept_) staging of _Parsifal_ (Eurotrash staging because presented as a staging of Wagner's _Parsifal_ which it most decidedly is not) and it's just about as we expected, generally speaking, although we must say the staging was unexpectedly beautiful and beautifully executed, never mind that it has nothing to do with Wagner's _Parsifal_ beyond being a deconstruction of and commentary on Wagner's music-drama; a deconstruction and commentary that hijacks the music and text of Wagner's _Parsifal_ to serve its own purposes resulting in what is effectively a new opera.

[...]

We object to this _Konzept_ staging for two reasons: first, because it's a fraud insofar as it's billed and promoted as a staging of Wagner's _Parsifal_ which, as we've said, it most decidedly is not, and second, because it was presented at the Bayreuther Festspiele which is the very last place on Earth almost any _Konzept_ staging of a Wagner opera or music-drama should be permitted. Had this otherwise excellent staging been billed and promoted honestly as what it actually is - viz., "Stefan Herheim's _Parsifal_: a deconstruction of and commentary on the music-drama of the same name by Richard Wagner using Wagner's music and text" - and presented at any opera venue in the world other than at the Bayreuther Festspiele, we would have had no objection to it at all, and in fact would have had many good things to say about it. 
=== End Quote ===

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

You're probably right that the Herheim _Parsifal_ was more noteworthy for the praise it received than the controversy it stirred up; in that second regard, the Schlingensief _Parsifal_ preceding it at Bayreuth went a good deal further (so that the Herheim came almost as a relief afterwards).

I do understand your insistence that _Konzept_-driven Regie productions should be billed as something other than the opera itself. In the most extreme cases, I find myself feeling somewhat the same way. For the most part, though, I can't bring myself to consider it much of an issue.

Practically speaking, I don't see any real fraud being perpetrated. It's widely known that today's opera directors (like their spoken-theatre cousins long since) take such license. People are aware, or can easily find out, what they're getting themselves into with a given production before they go to the theatre. Yes, opera neophytes may initially be a bit more perplexed, but I give them credit for being able to figure out that the production they're watching features a heavy directorial hand; if they're truly interested in getting to know an opera, they will have to devote a bit more effort than one visit to the theatre (something that was true in pre-Regie times as well).

I realize you're speaking on principled as well as practical grounds, but I still can't help wondering. Would it ease your concerns even a tiny bit if you made a mental adjustment yourself, approached a production having privately retitled it to your own satisfaction ("A Stefan Herheim Theatrical Piece Inspired by Wagner's _Parsifal_")?

Probably not, but I thought I'd ask.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

AC Douglas said:


> No, reading the libretto (which is merely the opera's armature) is by no stretch the way one discovers the intentions of the opera composer (i.e., the opera's creator), and listening to recordings is no help at all as one can get only another's understanding of that. *One must study the score (music, text, and stage directions) in order to discover what the opera's creator (i.e., the composer) was after. *Reading the libretto is what most Regietheater opera directors do and imagine that from that they know all they need to know in order to stage the opera. I'm certain I needn't point out to you just how wrong an approach that is.
> 
> --
> ACD
> http://www.soundsandfury.com/


Not only the score, but the staging manual (if any) produced by the music publisher, creator recordings (if any), the composer's other musical or autobiographical writings, memoirs by those involved in the premiere and/or who worked closely with the composer, the original stage costumes and sets (I don't understand why the latter have been referred to on this thread as laughable, in the 19thC they were often very beautiful), contemporary critical reviews of early performances, etc etc.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Figleaf said:


> Not only the score, but the staging manual (if any) produced by the music publisher, creator recordings (if any), the composer's other musical or autobiographical writings, memoirs by those involved in the premiere and/or who worked closely with the composer, the original stage costumes and sets (I don't understand why the latter have been referred to on this thread as laughable, in the 19thC they were often very beautiful), contemporary critical reviews of early performances, etc etc.


I would rather see an opera with the costumes for the time the plot is set with a painted screen as background instead of some regietheater with extravagant stagings.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Sloe said:


> I would rather see an opera with the costumes for the time the plot is set with a painted screen as background instead of some regietheater with extravagant stagings.


I hope you have opportunities to see such productions, just as I hope others have the chance to see very different approaches more to their own tastes.

Of course, many economic, social, and political factors determine what sort of stagings are available in a given locale. Our discussion here hasn't yet ventured into those thorny thickets!


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

amfortas said:


> I do understand your insistence that _Konzept_-driven Regie productions should be billed as something other than the opera itself. In the most extreme cases, I find myself feeling somewhat the same way. For the most part, though, I can't bring myself to consider it much of an issue.
> 
> [...]
> 
> ...


As you rightly surmised, my insistence that _Konzept_-driven Regie productions be billed as something other than the opera itself is lodged on principled as well as practical grounds and therefore my response to your closing question is a resounding NO.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

Figleaf said:


> Not only the score, but the staging manual (if any) produced by the music publisher, creator recordings (if any), the composer's other musical or autobiographical writings, memoirs by those involved in the premiere and/or who worked closely with the composer, the original stage costumes and sets (I don't understand why the latter have been referred to on this thread as laughable, in the 19thC they were often very beautiful), contemporary critical reviews of early performances, etc etc.


That's very dicey territory to explore and subject to all sorts of distortions. The only absolute, unquestionable guide left to us by an opera's creator (i.e., the composer) as to how he intended things to go is his original score (music, text, and stage directions) straight from his pen before the exigencies of production begin leaving their fingerprints all over it.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

AC Douglas said:


> That's very dicey territory to explore and subject to all sorts of distortions. The only absolute, unquestionable guide left to us by an opera's creator (i.e., the composer) as to how he intended things to go is his original score (music, text, and stage directions) straight from his pen before the exigencies of production begin leaving their fingerprints all over it.


Like with _Un ballo in maschera_. Everything was as Verdi originally intended.

This is certainly an extreme example with many complicating points* but there are certainly many other operas - I'd suspect the majority - that were composed with practical concerns in mind. Not everyone was Wagner** or Stockhausen.

* Is it more authentic to use the Boston setting of the original performances or to change the libretto to allow for the original Swedish setting? Or is _Gustav III_, as orchestrated and completed by others in this century more appropriate?

** He was not immune to practical considerations, but, well, he also went further towards realizing his vision than most.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

AC Douglas said:


> That's very dicey territory to explore and subject to all sorts of distortions. The only absolute, unquestionable guide left to us by an opera's creator (i.e., the composer) as to how he intended things to go is his original score (music, text, and stage directions) straight from his pen before the exigencies of production begin leaving their fingerprints all over it.
> 
> --
> ACD
> http://www.soundsandfury.com/


Historical context is not the same as 'distortions', although historical sources (including scores!) have to be interpreted, with the attendant risk of accidental misinterpretation. If 'the exigencies of production' are to be seen as diluting the purity of the score (which as I've said, requires interpretative decisions to be made in order for performance to take place) then surely the opera as an unsullied work of art exists only in the composer's imagination, or under his direct supervision, or on the printed page?


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

Figleaf said:


> Historical context is not the same as 'distortions', although historical sources (including scores!) have to be interpreted, with the attendant risk of accidental misinterpretation. If 'the exigencies of production' are to be seen as diluting the purity of the score (which as I've said, requires interpretative decisions to be made in order for performance to take place) then surely the opera as an unsullied work of art exists only in the composer's imagination, or under his direct supervision, or on the printed page?


We're here talking about an opera creator's (composer's) intent as it concerns the way things are meant to go with his opera and what I'm saying is that the ONLY absolute and unquestionable authority we have on that point is the creator's original score for that opera fresh from his pen complete. "Historical context" is worse than no help here. It can, in fact, be positively distorting. It makes no difference what the historical context may or may not have been. The complete finished score of the opera fresh from the composer's pen is, in all circumstances, both the first and last word on the matter as that complete finished score embodies the composer's uncorrupted ideal vision of whatever work is under consideration.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

AC Douglas said:


> We're here talking about an opera creator's (composer's) intent as it concerns the way things are meant to go with his opera and what I'm saying is that the ONLY absolute and unquestionable authority we have on that point is the creator's original score for that opera fresh from his pen complete. "Historical context" is worse than no help here. It can, in fact, be positively distorting. It makes no difference what the historical context may or may not have been. The complete finished score of the opera fresh from the composer's pen is, in all circumstances, both the first and last word on the matter as that complete finished score embodies the composer's uncorrupted ideal vision of whatever work is under consideration.


I do think mountmccabe's point is worth considering. Not only in extreme examples like Verdi's _Ballo_, but to a lesser degree in the case of countless operas, there are multiple versions of the libretto and/or score. Even Wagner, who gave us definitive texts of his mature music dramas, left more than one version of _Der fliegende Holländer_ and _Tannhäuser_.

So the "complete finished score" can be a tenuous notion at best; it may give us not only the "first and last word" on the matter, but several intermediate ones as well, representing various stages of the composer's thought. Many of those changes were prompted by those corrupting "exigencies of production" you mention--some no doubt imposed by meddling directors, impresarios, or government officials, but others initiated or at least sanctioned by the composer himself once he had a chance to see how his "uncorrupted ideal vision" played in rehearsal or performance.

Sometimes, then, delving into the historical background is the only way to make an informed decision--a decision that can only be provisional--about the composer's intent.


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

amfortas said:


> I do think mountmccabe's point is worth considering. Not only in extreme examples like Verdi's _Ballo_, but to a lesser degree in the case of countless operas, there are multiple versions of the libretto and/or score. Even Wagner, who gave us definitive texts of his mature music dramas, left more than one version of _Der fliegende Holländer_ and _Tannhäuser_.
> 
> So the "complete finished score" can be a tenuous notion at best; it may give us not only the "first and last word" on the matter, but several intermediate ones as well, representing various stages of the composer's thought. Many of those changes were prompted by those corrupting "exigencies of production" you mention--some no doubt imposed by meddling directors, impresarios, or government officials, but others initiated or at least sanctioned by the composer himself once he had a chance to see how his "uncorrupted ideal vision" played in rehearsal or performance.
> 
> Sometimes, then, delving into the historical background is the only way to make an informed decision--a decision that can only be provisional--about the composer's intent.


Every one of those "intermediate ones" you above mention, however they arose but especially those that arose as a consequence of the exigencies of production, are corruptions of the composer's ideal vision of the opera as embodied in his original score for that opera fresh from his pen complete. His ideal vision may have been impossible of actual realization for any number of reasons, and he may have sanctioned changes that made the work realizable onstage, but that does NOT alter his ideal vision of the work as embodied in his original score fresh from his pen complete. It's in that ideal vision that his deepest intent resides and that is what we need to uncover and understand.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

AC Douglas said:


> Every one of those "intermediate ones" you above mention, however they arose but especially those that arose as a consequence of the exigencies of production, are corruptions of the composer's ideal vision of the opera as embodied in his original score for that opera fresh from his pen complete. His ideal vision may have been impossible of actual realization for any number of reasons, and he may have sanctioned changes that made the work realizable onstage, but that does NOT alter his ideal vision of the work as embodied in his original score fresh from his pen complete. It's in that ideal vision that his deepest intent resides and that is what we need to uncover and understand.
> 
> --
> ACD
> http://www.soundsandfury.com/


So the first published version of a score is to be regarded as infallibly correct (whatever that might possibly mean in this context) but if the composer makes any later alterations, he's wrong?  I don't see the logic at all.


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

Figleaf said:


> So the first published version of a score is to be regarded as infallibly correct (whatever that might possibly mean in this context) but if the composer makes any later alterations, he's wrong?  I don't see the logic at all.


There's no logic at all the way you've put the matter (and which I _never_ did). Read again what I wrote, please - more carefully this time.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

AC Douglas said:


> There's no logic at all the way you've put the matter (and which I _never_ did). Read again what I wrote, please - more carefully this time.
> 
> --
> ACD
> http://www.soundsandfury.com/


Sorry, it really makes no more sense to me on a second reading than it did on the first.


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

Figleaf said:


> Sorry, it really makes no more sense to me on a second reading than it did on the first.


In that case I'm afraid I can be of no help to you as I've already put the matter as clearly as I'm able. The only thing I can tell you with certainty is that your understanding of what I wrote is entirely in error.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

A production that imposes concepts alien to the work as imagined by the composer is obviously offensive. But with opera, and Wagner in particular, a more fundamental problem is that opera is not primarily about concepts at all, but emotions. Wagner, despite the fact that his works are rich in ideas, was very clear about the kind of response he wanted from an audience: he wanted them to _feel_, and he carefully and calculatedly stripped plot and mise-en-scene of events and appurtenences of a purely literal and incidental nature, retaining only the bare minimum of elements crucial to the expression of the innermost motives and psychological states of his characters. The primary burden of expressing those motive and states was placed more and more on the orchestra over the course of his composing career, and he continuously developed and refined the language of orchestral music in fulfillment of this goal.

What this means is that the production of a Wagner opera truest to his intentions is one in which the staging gives the greatest opportunity for the music to make its expressive effect, coordinating with and magnifying the actions of the dramatis personae, and in which the spectator is not presented with images and actions designed to make him intellectualize - much less puzzle over - the "meaning" of the work as conceived by some director with a "personal point of view" on it or a desire to make it "relevant" or "provocative." Ideas, in Wagner's works, are not cerebral concepts constituting a counterpoint to and commentary upon what is transpiring on stage. They are fundamentally felt experiences, to be absorbed below the level of conscious awareness during the performance, accessible to ratiocination, if at all, only in the wake of it. Wagner understood the power to induce this feeling-comprehension as the province of myth and of music, and his unequalled deployment of both, the latter as the eloquent voice of the former, is the fruit of his commitment to and reverence for that power. Moreover, he knew that the capability of both myth and music to convey multiple meanings and correspondingly complex emotions gave his works a resonance which attempts at intellectualization could only undermine. This is a primary risk, and an all too common fault, of "concept" productions, which end up not so much illuminating Wagner's conceptions as limiting their suggestiveness and scope. In a real sense, the least illuminating thing a production of Wagner can do is to make us think about what it _means_ at the very moment when the composer, through the eloquence of his music, intends that we experience, at a level too deep for thought and deep enough to stir complex feelings we forgot we had, what it simply and starkly _is_.

The realm of meaning that Wagner's symbols and music suggest, at least in his mature work, is broader and deeper than any theatrical interpretation can encompass. Realizing this, the wise director will strive humbly to open his mind and heart to that whole iridescent realm of meaning and make his production as transparent, and himself as invisible, as possible.


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## AC Douglas (Jan 29, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> The realm of meaning that Wagner's symbols and music suggest, at least in his mature work, is broader and deeper than any theatrical interpretation can encompass. Realizing this, the wise director will strive humbly to open his mind and heart to that whole iridescent realm of meaning and make his production as transparent, and himself as invisible, as possible.


Precisely! Doing things the way it's done with today's _Konzept_ Wagner stagings, all of them known to me grounded in Brechtian principles which are the very antithesis of everything Wagnerian, can serve only to diminish and trivialize the transcendent magic Wagner has wrought.

--
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I can say this of regietheater.
I was for a long time interested in the operas by Richard Wagner but every time his operas was on TV it was strange and odd stagings that had nothing to do with the actual opera and that made me turn away from Wagner. Why make this productions when they make people turn away from Wagner in the first place.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> A production that imposes concepts alien to the work as imagined by the composer is obviously offensive. But with opera, and Wagner in particular, a more fundamental problem is that opera is not primarily about concepts at all, but emotions . . .


An eloquent, impassioned argument, Woodduck, and I think you say something crucial about Wagner's particular effect on his listeners. Certainly we have numerous accounts, going back to Wagner's own time, of not only audience members but also singers and conductors almost physically overwhelmed by the force of this music, as by a tidal wave. The old wizard of Bayreuth casts a powerful spell indeed.

In is in part this very seductive vortex that prompted the inevitable reaction against Wagner, first fully articulated by Nietzsche. Later, in a post-Brechtian world, that suspicion of an unquestioning emotional submission has led to Wagner being seen from a more critical perspective, not just in scholarly analyses, but in the actual staging of the works. And of course twentieth-century historical upheavals have caused us, fairly or unfairly, to take an even more cautious view of Wagner's (to borrow from A.C. Douglas) "transcendent magic." In consequence, the past few decades have brought us works like Syberberg's filmed version of _Parsifal_, a meditation on Wagner's status as cultural and historical icon that somehow still manages, perhaps in spite of itself, to evoke much of the opera's hypnotic spell.

Such stagings present an uneasy juxtaposition, of course, and are meant to. But speaking for myself, while I have often thrilled to the experience of immersion in Wagner's potent dramas (primarily through audio recordings), I can also find something compelling in productions that establish a tension between that irresistible emotional pull and a more critical/intellectual distance. You may say it's not truly Wagner; I might say it's Wagner within various cultural, social, and historical contexts--not the same as the former, and certainly not a replacement for it, but an illuminating, perhaps necessary, perspective in its own right.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

amfortas said:


> An eloquent, impassioned argument, Woodduck, and I think you say something crucial about Wagner's particular effect on his listeners. Certainly we have numerous accounts, going back to Wagner's own time, of not only audience members but also singers and conductors almost physically overwhelmed by the force of this music, as by a tidal wave. The old wizard of Bayreuth casts a powerful spell indeed.
> 
> In is in part this very seductive vortex that prompted the inevitable reaction against Wagner, first fully articulated by Nietzsche. Later, in a post-Brechtian world, that suspicion of an unquestioning emotional submission has led to Wagner being seen from a more critical perspective, not just in scholarly analyses, but in the actual staging of the works. And of course twentieth-century historical upheavals have caused us, fairly or unfairly, to take an even more cautious view of Wagner's (to borrow from A.C. Douglas) "transcendent magic." In consequence, the past few decades have brought us works like Syberberg's filmed version of _Parsifal_, a meditation on Wagner's status as cultural and historical icon that somehow still manages, perhaps in spite of itself, to evoke much of the opera's hypnotic spell.
> 
> Such stagings present an uneasy juxtaposition, of course, and are meant to. But speaking for myself, while I have often thrilled to the experience of immersion in Wagner's potent dramas (primarily through audio recordings), I can also find something compelling in productions that establish a tension between that irresistible emotional pull and a more critical/intellectual distance. You may say it's not truly Wagner; I might say it's Wagner within various cultural, social, and historical contexts--not the same as the former, and certainly not a replacement for it, but an illuminating, perhaps necessary, perspective in its own right.


Wagner is probably unique among composers in making many people feel a need to distance themselves from his impact, an impact they distrust or even, at the extreme, loathe and condemn. We Wagnerians need to remember to be charitable toward those pinched, timorous souls! If they need a stageful of rats to make _Lohengrin_ go down (reversing the Poppinsian ratio of medicine to sugar) I suppose we must let them have it.

But I know that you, amfortas, are not such as they. And I do see your point, and may even concede that a bit of "conceptualization" here and there - tastefully done, mind you! - may provide an occasional breath of air in Wagner's silk-draped, incense-filled magic bower.

Of course I won't be in attendance.


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## Rose (Feb 9, 2015)

While I don't love every "new" take on a classic opera, I enjoy seeing a new perspective. I've been a fan for over 50 years and castle walls and flouncy dresses become boring after a while, as does the same Zeffirelli Boheme differing only in the singers performing. 

The Vegas Rigoletto was fun and I thought the Willy Decker Traviata let me concentrate without distractions on the characters. There is no law that once a Regie production has been done, that it must be done that way forever. Those productions that are fads or don't work will die in time and be replaced by more traditional ones. While Americans call Regietheater "Eurotrash" I've wondered if the Europeans call those productions that are generated here "Ameritrash."


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Rose said:


> While I don't love every "new" take on a classic opera, I enjoy seeing a new perspective. I've been a fan for over 50 years and castle walls and flouncy dresses become boring after a while, as does the same Zeffirelli Boheme differing only in the singers performing.
> 
> The Vegas Rigoletto was fun and I thought the Willy Decker Traviata let me concentrate without distractions on the characters. There is no law that once a Regie production has been done, that it must be done that way forever. Those productions that are fads or don't work will die in time and be replaced by more traditional ones. While Americans call Regietheater "Eurotrash" I've wondered if the Europeans call those productions that are generated here "Ameritrash."


I believe it was one of the moderators here who coined the term "Ameribore." Ultimately, I don't find that term any more fair or illuminating than "Eurotrash," but it does seem an appropriate counterbalance.


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## Guest (Feb 17, 2015)

AC Douglas said:


> And what is the foundation of the opera director's job? As I've frequently put it elsewhere (on S&F), it is to discover, to the utmost capacity of his gift, the most vivid and compelling way to realize onstage the full sense and spirit of the _opera creator's_ concept and vision, not the opera director's own, as made manifest in the score (music, text, and stage directions). Attempting anything beyond that involves the opera director operating within territory he has no business even so much as stepping foot into much less messing about with.


Well, that's one opinion. Another is that it is to stage a work in any way that the director sees fit (implied in the word 'director') within the bounds of an economically viable production.


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## Retired (Feb 15, 2015)

As a retired singer that had the opportunity to perform Wagner many times, I am heartened that there is such deep interest in the composer and the works, especially with today's incessant repetition of the "top 40" in an effort to fill the seats. To me the challenge of Wagner was maintaining not only the vocal intensity (endurance!!) but filling the length of the opera with a dramatic intensity and a clear emotional and psychological "voyage" which is more often painted with pastels in contrast to the Italian school. JMHO....but I have seen some of the most satisfying performances in the intimacy of smaller European theaters, where less voluminous voices (and directors) have the courage to find the "guts" of a work rather than just bathe in overpowering decibels. 
I had the opportunity to work with Hotter years ago. After just a few hours, it became very clear to me that beyond having an incredible instrument (even then in his 70s), he understood the motivation for every utterance and all the needed vocal colors and dynamics needed. He often encouraged singers to approach Wagner as they would lieder. The density of text and inner content is very high.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Retired said:


> As a retired singer that had the opportunity to perform Wagner many times, I am heartened that there is such deep interest in the composer and the works, especially with today's incessant repetition of the "top 40" in an effort to fill the seats. To me the challenge of Wagner was maintaining not only the vocal intensity (endurance!!) but filling the length of the opera with a dramatic intensity and a clear emotional and psychological "voyage" which is more often painted with pastels in contrast to the Italian school. JMHO....but I have seen some of the most satisfying performances in the intimacy of smaller European theaters, where less voluminous voices (and directors) have the courage to find the "guts" of a work rather than just bathe in overpowering decibels.
> I had the opportunity to work with Hotter years ago. After just a few hours, it became very clear to me that beyond having an incredible instrument (even then in his 70s), he understood the motivation for every utterance and all the needed vocal colors and dynamics needed. He often encouraged singers to approach Wagner as they would lieder. The density of text and inner content is very high.


Hans Hotter. His Gurnemanz exemplifies everything you've said. A friend who doesn't know opera heard his recording of it and said "He sings like a Shakespearean actor." What an honor to be on stage with him.


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## Retired (Feb 15, 2015)

> Hans Hotter. His Gurnemanz exemplifies everything you've said. A friend who doesn't know opera heard his recording of it and said "He sings like a Shakespearean actor." What an honor to be on stage with him.


I have always found it amusing to hear some young singers and listeners speak of Hotter, their assessment based on recordings that lacked the detailed electronic editing of today. IMO...no voice that I have personally heard has approached Hotter. To "grasp" the vice, you had to be in the room. I feel the same about Siepi. I will never forget my first rehearsal with Siepi...it almost made me think of becoming a plumber!! One of the great lessons I learned from Hotter was how to sing German in the Italian style and not let the consonants and "fricatives" get in the way. He was blessed with a truly cavernous voice, that needed no projection assistance. He was free to sing lieder on the stage...his voice was always present.


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## OperaMaven (May 5, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> Like with _Un ballo in maschera_.
> 
> * Is it more authentic to use the Boston setting of the original performances or to change the libretto to allow for the original Swedish setting?


The Boston setting went almost completely out of favor after 11/22/1963. I don't think that requires further explanation.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Rose said:


> While I don't love every "new" take on a classic opera, I enjoy seeing a new perspective. I've been a fan for over 50 years and castle walls and flouncy dresses become boring after a while, as does the same Zeffirelli Boheme differing only in the singers performing.
> 
> The Vegas Rigoletto was fun and I thought the Willy Decker Traviata let me concentrate without distractions on the characters. There is no law that once a Regie production has been done, that it must be done that way forever. Those productions that are fads or don't work will die in time and be replaced by more traditional ones. While Americans call Regietheater "Eurotrash" I've wondered if the Europeans call those productions that are generated here "Ameritrash."


Indeed, I am very much the same way. Pretty liberal when it comes to opera productions indeed .


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