Regietheater

Regietheater (German for director's theater) is the modern practice of allowing a director freedom in devising the way a given opera or play is staged so that the creator's original, specific intentions or stage directions (where supplied) can be changed, together with major elements of geographical location, chronological situation, casting and plot. Typically such changes may be made to point a particular political point or modern parallels which may be remote from traditional interpretations.

Examples found in Regietheater productions may include some or all of the following:

Relocating the story from the original location to a more modern period (including setting in a totalitarian regime)^[1]
Modifications to the story from the original script^[2]
Interpretative elements stressing the role of race/gender/class-based oppression are emphasised. In his 1976 staging of the Ring Cycle at the Bayreuth Festival, Patrice Chéreau used an updated 19th-century setting that followed the interpretation of George Bernard Shaw, who saw the Ring as a social commentary on the exploitation of the working class by wealthy 19th-century capitalists.^[3]
Abstraction in the set design^[4]
An emphasis on sexuality^[5]
Costumes that frequently mix eras and locales. Examples include the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis's 2010 production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and its 2011 Don Giovanni which portray some characters in 18th-century attire and others in mid-20th century clothing.

^ Neil Fisher, The Times (London), 12 May 2006 (Subscription required): "Take his Tosca for Opera North, where every single act took place in a dingy church basement and Scarpia was a Berlusconi stooge in a dirty mac. Or the colourful Spanish dances of de Falla's La vida breve, hauntingly reimagined by Alden for the same company as a ritual suicide in a sweatshop. Or his now classic adaptation of Turandot for Welsh National Opera and English National Opera, which put the murderous Chinese princess in killer heels and a Maggie Thatcher power suit.
^ Stephen Moss, "Twin Powers", The Guardian (London), 26 May 2006: "Christopher's production of Rigoletto for the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2000 was dismissed by some influential backers as "trashy" and never revived. That production, which he set in a Victorian gentlemen's club and turned into an examination of sexual morality, seems to have tarnished his reputation among operatic managements anxious not to offend their audiences in these financially and artistically straitened times. 'My American career is now pretty well over,' he says. 'It takes a few years before you find that no one dares to hire you.'"
^ Bernard Shaw, The Perfect Wagnerite (1883) on www.marxists.org Regarding Wagner's Socialist leanings (which forced him into exile in Switzerland and France), Shaw writes that "we have reached the point at which some foolish person is sure to interrupt us by declaring that The Rhine Gold is what they call 'a work of art' pure and simple, and that Wagner never dreamt of shareholders, tall hats, whitelead factories, and industrial and political questions looked at from the socialistic and humanitarian points of view." Later, in summing up The Ring: "there is a considerable portion of The Ring, especially the portraiture of our capitalistic industrial system from the socialist's point of new in the slavery of the Niblungs and the tyranny of Alberic, which is unmistakable, as it dramatizes that portion of human activity which lies well within the territory covered by our intellectual consciousness ... Its meaning was as clear to Wagner as it is to us."
^ Lisa Hirsch: "Two brilliant stars overcome bizarre and muddled staging in San Francisco Opera's Capuleti", 30 September 2012, theclassicalreview.com: "The two (DiDonato and Cabell) made a splendid romantic couple. They would have been even more successful had the staging been more sympathetic and character-focused. Instead, director Vincent Broussard, set designer Vincent Lemaire, and costumer designer Christian Lacroix, all in their San Francisco Opera debuts, have put together a muddled and static Regie Lite production that neither entertained nor cast the kind of illumination on (Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi) that a thoughtful production by a more gifted director might have rendered. The very first scene tells just about everything you might need to know about the production. The set is a shallow box with abstract patterns projected on the walls."
^ Fisher notes: "You'll never catch Christopher Alden drowning an opera with the cocktail of sex, drugs and violence applied over and over again by Calixto Bieito."

[Fisher-1] Neil Fisher, The Times (London), 12 May 2006 (Subscription required): "Take his Tosca for Opera North, where every single act took place in a dingy church basement and Scarpia was a Berlusconi stooge in a dirty mac. Or the colourful Spanish dances of de Falla's La vida breve, hauntingly reimagined by Alden for the same company as a ritual suicide in a sweatshop. Or his now classic adaptation of Turandot for Welsh National Opera and English National Opera, which put the murderous Chinese princess in killer heels and a Maggie Thatcher power suit.

[2] Stephen Moss, "Twin Powers", The Guardian (London), 26 May 2006: "Christopher's production of Rigoletto for the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2000 was dismissed by some influential backers as "trashy" and never revived. That production, which he set in a Victorian gentlemen's club and turned into an examination of sexual morality, seems to have tarnished his reputation among operatic managements anxious not to offend their audiences in these financially and artistically straitened times. 'My American career is now pretty well over,' he says. 'It takes a few years before you find that no one dares to hire you.'"

[3] Bernard Shaw, The Perfect Wagnerite (1883) on www.marxists.org Regarding Wagner's Socialist leanings (which forced him into exile in Switzerland and France), Shaw writes that "we have reached the point at which some foolish person is sure to interrupt us by declaring that The Rhine Gold is what they call 'a work of art' pure and simple, and that Wagner never dreamt of shareholders, tall hats, whitelead factories, and industrial and political questions looked at from the socialistic and humanitarian points of view." Later, in summing up The Ring: "there is a considerable portion of The Ring, especially the portraiture of our capitalistic industrial system from the socialist's point of new in the slavery of the Niblungs and the tyranny of Alberic, which is unmistakable, as it dramatizes that portion of human activity which lies well within the territory covered by our intellectual consciousness ... Its meaning was as clear to Wagner as it is to us."

[4] Lisa Hirsch: "Two brilliant stars overcome bizarre and muddled staging in San Francisco Opera's Capuleti", 30 September 2012, theclassicalreview.com: "The two (DiDonato and Cabell) made a splendid romantic couple. They would have been even more successful had the staging been more sympathetic and character-focused. Instead, director Vincent Broussard, set designer Vincent Lemaire, and costumer designer Christian Lacroix, all in their San Francisco Opera debuts, have put together a muddled and static Regie Lite production that neither entertained nor cast the kind of illumination on (Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi) that a thoughtful production by a more gifted director might have rendered. The very first scene tells just about everything you might need to know about the production. The set is a shallow box with abstract patterns projected on the walls."

[5] Fisher notes: "You'll never catch Christopher Alden drowning an opera with the cocktail of sex, drugs and violence applied over and over again by Calixto Bieito."

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