# Most depressing development in opera



## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

Hello forumites,

I've been following some of the opera threads here over the past few weeks and would like to share my thoughts on this phenomenon known as 'Regietheater' which is, in my opinion, one of the most depressing developments in opera over the past 30 years.

The central complaint of the Regie cheerleaders is that operagoers rarely make an attempt to "put the elements in context", or try to grasp the drift of the director's "take on the work"

And my response is:

What?

Why should anyone be concerned with an opera director's take on the work? It's of no importance whatsoever. It's not - or, rather, ought not to be - part of an opera director's job to have a "take on the work". His or her job - his sole job - is to realize onstage, in the most vivid and compelling manner possible, the opera creator's take on the work; i.e., to realize onstage the concept and vision of the opera's creator as made manifest in the score (music, text, and stage directions). Period. Full stop.

Any opera director who goes beyond that in his staging of an opera is involving himself in areas he has no business being much less meddling in. And to preempt the favorite straw man of Regietheater cheerleaders and champions, that does NOT mean or even imply that opera stagings should be of the "Tosca with bonnet, shepherd's crook and Empire waist, [or] Valkyries with horns, or humped Rigolettos wearing funny hats" sort, as some put it. It means that honest and conscientious opera directors must find evocative and resonant new ways to stage an opera for contemporary audiences without tossing aside or ignoring in any meaningful way the full spirit and sense of the opera creator's concept and vision as made manifest in the score.

Any hack opera director can be outrageous and provocative in his stagings of opera. It takes an opera director of genuine gift to be able to stage an opera in conformance with the inviolable (or, rather, ought to be inviolable) principles above set forth.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Yeah, we've had a couple of threads on this recently.

I basically agree with you.

Problem is, these directors seem not to know about opera, or maybe they have motives like getting publicity or attracting controversy to get bums on seats, as it where. & on the flip-side, compared to say 100 or 50 years ago, I'd guess that many attending opera today don't have much of a clue either about the medium to a deeper degree, apart from seeing it as a social activity. Let's face it, opera is pretty much a dead medium, and seeing it live is like a ritual for the elites. So we have to 'sex it up' to make it seem relevant when it isn't.

I'm not against opera or going to see opera, etc. but basically it got left behind in the 'relevance' stakes decades ago, maybe even 50 years ago, by stage/Broadway musicals.


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## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

Hello Sid, thanks for your comments.

For me the issue is about putting in the time and effort and less about relevance.

For example, I don't think Peter Gelb (manager at the Metropolitan Opera) has a snowball's chance in Hialeah of reaching most of the iPod generation. His central mission is to make opera "more theatrical".

But the problem is that opera requires a degree of focus and concentration and a willingness to subsume oneself in the art form and I don't many in our current narcissitic iPod generation have the patience.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

I've attended a couple of operas, both traditional. I'm a senior citizen. If I attend another, it's going to be of the Regietheater.

I see a need for both schools. The traditionalists can follow exactness in old costumes, while people like me can support Anything Goes.

I relate better to villains and a-holes in suits.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Check out this thread:

http://www.talkclassical.com/19945-god-how-dark-here.html#post318157


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Oceanside said:


> ...
> For example, I don't think Peter Gelb (manager at the Metropolitan Opera) has a snowball's chance in Hialeah of reaching most of the iPod generation. His central mission is to make opera "more theatrical"...


Well I think its already theatrical, opera being music theatre. Sounds like P.R. speak to me.



> ...
> But the problem is that opera requires a degree of focus and concentration and a willingness to subsume oneself in the art form and I don't many in our current narcissitic iPod generation have the patience.


Well narcissism is the word, and these 'regietheatre' directors are the last word on narcissism. So their narcissism reflects the potential audeince they're (fruitlessly?) trying to attract.

In any case, a general comment is that classical music as a whole is getting more and more like this. Its about bums on seats being the most important, everything else goes by the wayside. They try to cater for various (fictitious?) segments of the listening public while disregarding the needs of the majority in the middle of the spectrum.

I for one somewhat admire people like Vaneyes who can be so flexible. I think its a distortion of the integrity of the composer's vision to do things like a 'director' changing the ending of _Tosca_, so she doesn't leap from the castle to her death. I can't remember how it was changed. Or another guy made the setting of _Madama Butterfly _in a brothel. I mean this is idiotic. It shows how 'narcissistic' the whole situation has become. Its all about navel gazing and poverty of real creativity/invention.

After 1945, Boulez said that the Paris opera house should be bombed. Well, that was way way before he ended up becoming an opera conductor & joining the ranks of the establishment himself. But it shows how then the whole medium was seen as a hangover from the ills of the past. But what have they done now? Just refitted the same old works with a new veneer. Its just a kind of game-show for the elites as it always has been. Except it appears the elites now don't have much of a clue what's going on on the stage, and maybe don't care. Neither do the directors. Who does? That's what I mean re relevance.


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## Hesoos (Jun 9, 2012)

I like traditional and monumental productions, if the production is too free then is difficult to understand the story of the opera.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

Xavier said:


> But the problem is that opera requires a degree of focus and concentration and a willingness to subsume oneself in the art form and I don't many in our current narcissitic iPod generation have the patience.


I'm not part of the I-Pod generation, but sadly, I find that the older I get, the less patience I have. I've tried to watch many operas on DVD in the last few months, but there is not one I have the patience to sit through without fast-forwarding or jumping ahead. Most of them I just turn off. The closest I got to watching one all the way through was "Werther" (I didn't quite make it through the Second Act).

The same thing is true of symphonies and other concert music. Last night I was watching a really great outdoor concert by the Berlin Philharmonic on DVD. When they got to Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet" and I saw it was 22 minutes long, I just skipped over it.

I'm not defending this attitude, but I feel the need to be honest about it.

I agree with the OP's general point, though. I'm not against new visions of old works. However, nothing is gained, in my opinion, when the visual representation actually clashes *in spirit* with the obvious intentions of the composer. I feel that it's either pandering or directorial egotism, neither of which I feel like supporting.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

I've traveled many times to see/hear a favorite singer in an opera or concert performance. But I've never traveled anywhere to see what brilliant new "concept" some stage director has come up with.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Vesteralen said:


> the older I get, the less patience I have. I've tried to watch many operas on DVD in the last few months, but there is not one I have the patience to sit through without fast-forwarding or jumping ahead. Most of them I just turn off. The closest I got to watching one all the way through was "Werther" (I didn't quite make it through the Second Act).
> 
> The same thing is true of symphonies and other concert music. Last night I was watching a really great outdoor concert by the Berlin Philharmonic on DVD. When they got to Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet" and I saw it was 22 minutes long, I just skipped over it.


maybe it's not really a function of getting older, but more of having more experience with the art form? Opera is frequently described as an obsession by people who know themselves, and in general, with any addiction, you need more to get the same high ... and so when you're first learning to love a piece you can enjoy the bits that lead up to the hammer, but once you know a piece, you've got to have the hammer. One possible take on it, anyway!


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

guythegreg said:


> maybe it's not really a function of getting older, but more of having more experience with the art form? Opera is frequently described as an obsession by people who know themselves, and in general, with any addiction, you need more to get the same high ... and so when you're first learning to love a piece you can enjoy the bits that lead up to the hammer, but once you know a piece, you've got to have the hammer. One possible take on it, anyway!


Yeah, I don't really know. You may be right.

On the other hand, one thing I have noticed about myself is that when I'm watching something, as opposed to just listening to it, it must be *visually* interesting. It's one of the reasons why it's hard for me to sit through a complete performamce of a symphony on DVD. Unless there is something about the conductor, the orchestra, the venue or the editing that is really entrancing or interesting to look at, I don't want to watch it. I might really enjoy listening to it on a stereo, but if the visual element doesn't really add anything I particularly want to see, I don't want to look at it.

The same thing is true of opera. The singers may be fantastic, but if the sets are boring, the singers don't act very well or they are not appealing to look at, I don't want to watch it. If I'm watching something, I can't ignore the visuals and only concentrate on the music. My boredom intensifies doubly when the visuals are boring.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Hesoos said:


> I like traditional and monumental productions, if the production is too free then is difficult to understand the story of the opera.


I respect your likes, but a good portion of operatic storylines can use embellishment, clarification, modification, etc.

And any monumental production that I've seen, has had no problem with special effects, gadgetry, gimmicks, trickery, etc.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Sid James said:


> Well I think its already theatrical, opera being music theatre. Sounds like P.R. speak to me.
> 
> Well narcissism is the word, and these 'regietheatre' directors are the last word on narcissism. So their narcissism reflects the potential audeince they're (fruitlessly?) trying to attract.
> 
> ...


I think narcissism is misplaced in this topic as creative or spectating inducement, that's not to say there can't be narcissists doing both. But you'd have to go some to prove that any given production was staged or enjoyed because of an individual's "birthmark".

Art is a public, broad expression. Whereas narcissism involves narrower relationships. It's an overused/misused expression of expression.


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## Yashin (Jul 22, 2011)

I disagree with the original poster.

For me, i really enjoy a directors 'realisation' of an opera. Some composers specified things in great details, whilst other did not.

Take for example, Die Zauberflote. It can be a long evening at the opera if set in some masonic style stand-and-deliver singing OR it can be updated, refreshed. Now the music and lyrics must be central to the opera production but the sets/costumes and direction should be varied.

I watch a lot of opera on DVD and i have said before that i really appreciate when the director gets to write a long piece about his/her vision and how it fits the piece.

Of course, sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. But it gets you thinking and it makes it more bearable.


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