Posts Tagged ‘gesamtkunstwerk’
Friday, December 9th, 2011
By James Jorden
After putting off for a week trying to make some sense of the horrific mess that is the Met’s new Faust, I’m finally just going to give up. There are some disasters that bear writing about as what you might call teaching opportunities: this season’s Don Giovanni, for example, as a cautionary tale about the perils of timid conservatism. But there’s nothing to be learned from this Faust besides, perhaps, “never hire Des McAnuff to direct another opera under any circumstances.” (more…)
Tags:english national opera, gesamtkunstwerk, houston grand opera, peter gelb, regie, robert lepage, the machine, the met, willy decker
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Friday, November 18th, 2011
By James Jorden
Now that it has become apparent that Robert Lepage’s production of the Ring at the Met is a fiasco (too soon? Nah.)… well, anyway, since arguably the production is a dreary, unworkable, overpriced mess whose primary (perhaps only) virtue is that it actually hasn’t killed anyone yet, and since, let’s face it, the Machinecentric show turned out to be so mind-bogglingly expensive (all those Sunday tech rehearsals with stagehands being paid, no doubt, in solid platinum ingots!), something has to be done. In this article, I intend to propose that “something.” (more…)
Tags:ann ziff, benedikt von peter, blogs, blu-ray, bryn terfel, Deborah Voigt, deconstruction, eva-maria westbroek, fabio luisi, gesamtkunstwerk, gwyneth jones, hd, james levine, jonas kaufmann, julian crouch, lady gaga, lehman's syndrome, martin kusej, metropolitan opera, otto schenk, peter gelb, phelim mcdermott, pundits, regie, richard croft, robert lepage, satyagraha, stefan herheim, the enchanted island, the fortress of solitude, the machine, the met, wagner
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Thursday, April 28th, 2011
It’s fortunate that Lulu at Den Norske Opera was the last stop on the “Regietournee,” because honestly anything after that would have amounted to an anticlimax. If there is a more brilliant director working in opera today than Stefan Herheim, well, maybe I shouldn’t see any of his work, because it might be too much for the human brain to absorb. (more…)
Tags:alban berg, clowns, deconstruction, gesamtkunstwerk, lighting, lulu, metropolitan opera, realism, regie, stefan herheim, symbols, tennessee williams, the met, tone rows, vienna school, wooster group
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Tuesday, April 19th, 2011
By James Jorden
The Staatsoper Stuttgart may be called the cradle of Regietheater, or at least a cradle of Regietheater. Strong theatrical values have characterized this company from the opening of the theater in 1912 (the world premiere of Ariadne auf Naxos, helmed by megaregisseur Max Reinhardt) through the 1950s, when Wieland Wagner’s frequent projects there caused the house to be nicknamed “the Winter Bayreuth,” on through the future, as Jossi Wieler becomes intendant in the fall of 2011. (more…)
Tags:calixto bieito, gesamtkunstwerk, journey of a thousand miles, leather trench coats, parsifal, realism, regie, revivals, richard wagner, staatsoper stuttgart, symbols
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