Regie

This picture has nothing to do with today's subject. I just thought that an occasional glimpse at a peaceful pastoral scene would help keep my blood pressure within tolerable limits while I write this post. For a while now I have been meaning to talk with you about something I consider a supperrating carbuncle on the body politic in general and opera in particular. I refer, of course, to Regieopera.

Every now and again when Portland Opera has produced an opera in a style not entirely in the traditional mold I have heard from my seat in the Keller Auditorium and above the jingling sound made by the rattling of expensive jewelry mutterings the essence of which is "Why do they have to mess around with something that was just fine to begin with?" I have heard the expression of similar opinions at the Met simulcasts over the more plebian sound of the crunch of popcorn. Now, I am by and large a traditionalist and not much given to messing with the tried and true though I can take the odd bit of modern dress if I must. But when I hear rumblings among the populace just because everything doesn't look like Zeffirelli designed it I say to myself "Think yourselves lucky that you don't live in Europe where they have Regie!"

For those of you to whom the terms Regie and Regieopera are meaningless let me explain. Regieopera happens when a director of immense but misplaced ego takes an opera and with nothing in mind save his own greater glory (which he hopes will ensue from putting on a 'provocative' and 'stimulating' show without any care or concern for time, place or the wishes and intentions of the composer/librettist) thrusts upon the public an 'artistic vision' which appears to have been from its mother's womb untimely ripped. And if you think I am being overly dramatic wait till you scroll down and see the pictures!

There are many examples I could use to illustrate why this approach to the art form we love should not be allowed to sully the shores of the USA and remain quarantined in Europe with rabid dogs. I have chosen two. The first is Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera directed by Johann Kresnik who had this to say:

"It will be a different, a provocative masked ball on the ruins of the World Trade Centre," he told reporters before Saturday's premiere. “The naked stand for people without means, the victims of capitalism, the underclass, who don’t have anything anymore." Except Mickey Mouse masks, apparently:

Of course not everyone is naked. Neither is the setting always so minimal:

And for some reason I cannot fathom some directors still seem to think that all you need to make a production cutting-edge is introduce the image of Hitler - in a red dress and with a boa:

As the incomparable La Cieca put it so beautifully: "In other ways, the production is very traditional; for example, Kresnik delivers the classic Verdian image of Mickey Mouse beating up on a drag Hitler".

Now I quite understand that Verdi's works are in the public domain and therefor subject to whatever indignities are heaped upon them but why haven't I read about Disney's attorneys having apoplexy? For those of you who have stomaches strong enough to take more of this stuff you can find a slide show of over 200 photographs from this production here.

I choose as my other example a recent production by Hans Neuenfels for the Aalto Musiktheater Essen. La Cieca posted these pictures and readers were invited to guess the opera. Over one hundred people guessed or otherwise commented. Here they are:



The following will give you some hint as to the quality and general tenor of those who took part in the guess-fest : "The last pic looks like two dead people in coffins, which could be Romeo et Juliette, but doesn’t explain the Irish oomp-loompahs. The middle pic is either supposed to be a bird, or the tableware from Beauty and the Beast. The first scene has staghorns, so it could be Freischutz. Therefore it must be The Mikado." The correct answer was Tannhäuser. But you had already guessed that, hadn't you? And again on the issue of copyright, are you telling me that the current keepers of the Richard Wagner flame didn't do spit-takes all over the pages of that day's edition of the Nordbayerischer Kurier when they saw that one? Where are the marching hordes of earnest Rechtsanwalten in geistiges Eigentum gelehrt (IP lawyers but it just looks and sounds so much more terrifying in German, nicht war?). Perhaps the publishers don't really care and are happy to just to take the money and run.

I am not alone in my antipathy to this nonsense. In his autobiography The Toughest Show on Earth: My Rise and Reign at the Metropolitan Opera, Peter Volpe , General Manager emeritus of the Metropolitan Opera, made no bones about what he thought. "I had developed a real distaste for what the Europeans call "regie opera" -- productions in which a director transforms a work into something unrecognizable, according to some personal "vision." For me, most of these productions backfired because the director had rewritten the story for his own purposes, rather than attempting to translate it into terms the audience could understand. Forget about opera as spectacle, as entertainment, as enjoyment. These pedants, who were pretending to be innovators, were really doing commentaries about opera. I wasn't interested in going back to school."

So, no, don't put Peter Volpe and me in the un-decideds column. And the next time you are tempted to whine when they do something at Portland Opera which doesn't quite accord with your own view of how that particular opera should be staged you may want to thank your lucky stars. Unless of course we are watching Hitler in drag or some fat naked dude wearing a Mickey Mouse mask. In that case you can take your cue for throwing rotten fruit from me. On the count of three....