Opera Directors on DVD/Blu-ray [Archive] - Opera Forum at Opera Lively

Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:13 PM

This is a place to discuss the work of opera directors as seen on DVD/Blu-ray. What consistent traits can we find in certain directors (whether traditional or "regie") from one production to the next, and whose work do we love--or loathe?

I'll start with brief capsule descriptions of some directors present and past, along with a few of their titles on DVD.

Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:14 PM

Nikolaus Lehnhoff is known for his recent, challenging Wagner productions:

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Earlier he established himself with a series of Janacek operas at Glyndebourne, with conducter Andrew Davis:

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:17 PM

Willy Decker has given us innovative staging (and sometimes heavy-handed symbolism) in his Verdi triple-Decker:

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:19 PM

Harry Kupfer is represented on DVD with not one but two Ring cycles, and a classic Fliegende Holländer:

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:29 PM

Robert Carsen is one of today's most admired and sought-after directors. He is always original, and while his work on DVD may not always entirely persuade (Rusalka, Tosca, Il Trovatore), he has also had his share of striking successes.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:40 PM

Calixto Bieito is opera's reigning regie bad boy. This Catalan provocateur is represented by just three DVDs: a largely panned, harshly unsentimental Don Giovanni, an intriguing industrial Wozzeck, and a riveting updated Carmen.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:44 PM

Götz Friedrich's work still holds up very well, with his two definitive Strauss films and such stage successes as his Bayreuth Tannhäuser.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:46 PM

Patrice Chereau has had a long, impressive career, from his famous centennial Bayreuth Ring (best Walküre ever!) to more recent offerings like his La Scala Tristan and Janacek's House of the Dead from Aix.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:49 PM

Andrei Serban, famous as a director of spoken theatre, has had some strong forays into opera as well. His Les Indes Galantes is widely loved, but he's also done a lively L'Italiana in Algeri and a fascinating recasting of Werther as a Douglas Sirk-style 1950's Hollywood melodrama.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:53 PM

Nicholas Hytner is responsible for the best Così fan tutte on DVD, a sprightly Cunning Little Vixen, and an award-winning though mixed-reviewed staging of Don Carlo that appears in both the Royal Opera House DVD and a Met HD broadcast.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:55 PM

Julie Taymor is known more for Broadway and film, but she's done a brilliant Oedipus Rex and a beautiful Met Magic Flute.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:57 PM

Jean-Pierre Ponnelle always brought a stylized, rather baroque sensibility to his work. He was probably best known for his series of Monteverdi and Mozart films.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:58 PM

Sir Peter Hall, noted Shakespearean director, also staged numerous operas at Glyndebourne and the Royal Opera House, often featuring his then-wife Maria Ewing.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:58 PM

John Dexter, another English theatre director, did some of the more successful traditional opera productions at the Met.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 09:59 PM

John Schlesinger, yet another English stage and film director, was also responsible for some lavish, effective traditional stagings.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 10:00 PM

Elijah Moshinsky, an Australian director (though born in China), was long an established figure at the Royal Opera House and the Met.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 10:01 PM

Otto Schenk, along with Zeffirelli, is probably the name that comes up most when people think of beautiful, conservative stagings--for better or worse.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 10:02 PM

Sir Richard Eyre, still one more multi-talented British director, has also tried his hand at opera. His Royal Opera House Traviata can be seen in two different DVD offerings, along with his Met Carmen.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 10:03 PM

Petr Weigl is best known for his powerful filmed versions of operas.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 10:03 PM

Pierre Audi, the French-Lebanese artistic director of The Netherlands Opera, has done striking abstracted productions of Wagner's Ring cycle and the Monteverdi series.

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His work in that visual style extends from Rameau to modern composers like Messiaen and Tan Dun.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 10:05 PM

Carlus Padrissa, the Spanish director and co-founder of La Fura dels Baus performance group, has devised wild productions involving striking projected imagery combined with onstage acrobatics. The group's Salzburg Damnation de Faust met with limited success, but their Valencia Ring cycle was a fascinating project, at least visually. There have been widely mixed reviews for their latest Berlioz effort, a futuristic Les Troyens.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 10:06 PM

Jürgen Flimm, a German theatre and opera director, is represented on DVD by two Fidelios (the Met and Zurich), along with an interesting Zurich Traviata and a memorable Met Salome.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 10:14 PM

David McVicar, another of today's biggest directing names, has done beautiful, intelligently updated productions of Handel and Mozart, along with memorable stagings of Massenet's Manon, Gounod's Faust, and Strauss's Salome.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 10:17 PM

Werner Herzog, a leader of the New German cinema movement, was also noted for beautiful (though surprisingly conservative) opera productions--the best known probably being his snowy, smokey, laser-lit Bayreuth Lohengrin.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 10:18 PM

Peter Konwitschny, another German, is an idiosyncratic, often puzzling director. He did the infamous, wildly uneven "yellow sofa" Tristan (which nonetheless had some very effective moments), a Lohengrin rather arbitrarily set among schoolchildren, and a heavily debunked Götterdämmerung as the last installment of the multi-director Stuttgart Ring. Not everyone's cup of tea, but always thought-provoking.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 10:20 PM

David Alden, an American director who has done extensive work for the English National Opera and the Bavarian State Opera, is known for eclectic, unsettling stagings. His DVD catalog includes a nightmarish Tannhäuser, a couple of highly tongue-in-cheek Baroque operas, and his TV adaptation of his own staging of Thomas Adès's Powder Her Face.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 10:22 PM

Wolfgang Wagner, perennially overshadowed by his more gifted older brother Wieland, nonetheless kept alive the post-World War II modernist tradition of staging his grandfather's works at Bayreuth. His development can be traced in two versions each of Parsifal and Die Meistersinger.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 10:25 PM

Heiner Müller is considered Germany's foremost 20th-century dramatist after Brecht. He was also a noted theatre director, but made only one foray into opera--a memorable 1993 Tristan und Isolde at Bayreuth. Abstracted, cool, definitely not for all tastes, it remains a formidable production of this great work. Sadly, Müller died two years after the premiere, the same year this video record was made.

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Amfortas

January 6th, 2012, 10:27 PM

Stéphane Braunschweig, an acclaimed French theatre and opera director, is represented on DVD by two interesting minimalist productions: Die Walküre from his Aix-en-Provence Ring cycle, and Don Carlo from La Scala.

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MAuer

January 7th, 2012, 03:05 PM

Great thread, Amfortas!

And let's not forget Martin Kusej, the Austrian who nearly always manages to have his singers attired in nothing more than underwear at some point in his productions:

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sospiro

January 7th, 2012, 04:35 PM

Robert Carsen is one of today's most admired and sought-after directors.

:encouragement:

He's directing the new Falstaff which I'm seeing so really looking forward to it

Elijah Moshinsky, an Australian director (though born in China), was long an established figure at the Royal Opera House and the Met.

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David McVicar, another of today's biggest directing names

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AmericanGesamtkunstwerk

April 25th, 2012, 06:01 AM

Does anyone have this?
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Looks familiar, it may be the one I saw on YouTube, complete. If it is, it's good.

Almaviva

April 25th, 2012, 06:34 AM

AmericanGesamtkunstwerk

April 25th, 2012, 06:48 AM

Oops, what did I do? I think instead of replying, I edited your post, AGKW.
Sorry. Anyway, folks, AGKW had quoted Amfortas' post and asked if anybody has this Die Soldaten. Then *I* replied "looks familiar" etc.
So, that was a reply to AGKW, not meant to be edited into his post.

I was asking because Kupfer is somewhat of a champion of contemporary opera (wrote a libretto for a Penderecki) and this Soldaten is the only one of his contemporary works available on dvd. clips look really cool with some innovative theatric language. I love Harry Kupfer.

Amfortas

April 25th, 2012, 04:44 PM

I don't think I was the one asking about the Die Soldaten video . . . but anyway, it looks cool! :)

rgz

April 25th, 2012, 06:44 PM

I've only seen 4 Laurent Pelly productions (the following three plus the current Met Manon):

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Based on those four, I'd say his hallmarks include a pervasive sense of wit and cleverness; not exactly minimalist -- tastefully understated sets would be a better way to describe it; clever and innovative solutions to common staging concerns.

Almaviva

April 25th, 2012, 07:04 PM

I don't think I was the one asking about the Die Soldaten video . . . but anyway, it looks cool! :)

Yes, I've clarified this, I clicked on the edit button instead of the reply button.

Almaviva

April 25th, 2012, 11:46 PM

Amfortas, maybe this thread should be moved to the Educational forum, as part of the Inventory of Opera project (which is kind of stalled but we should resume it in the summer when seasons pause).

Amfortas

April 26th, 2012, 12:33 AM

Amfortas, maybe this thread should be moved to the Educational forum.

Works for me! :)

Schigolch

November 3rd, 2012, 10:42 AM

Robert Wilson (Waco, TX) is your man for hieratic, severe, static stagings.

Alceste:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slQ2MQOJWuI

An empty stage. The ligthning resembling the natural light of the Sun in Trondheim in early July, close to midnight. Dressed in plain robes, the characters move slowly, with preternatural calm. Most of the action is in their hands.

A cube suspended from the ceiling is turning, and turning again, changing size and location. Representing God?.

This kind of staging works better for some operas than for others, but Wilson keep insisting on the same paradigm over and over again. In my view, for the more contemplative an opera is, the best it can fit Wilson's staging.

Aksel

November 5th, 2012, 08:19 AM

An empty stage. The ligthning resembling the natural light of the Sun in Trondheim in early July, close to midnight. Dressed in plain robes, the characters move slowly, with preternatural calm. Most of the action is in their hands.

That is... very specific?

Schigolch

November 5th, 2012, 08:49 AM

Well, I think one can always say "the natural light of the Sun between 60º and 65º degrees of North latitude in early July, close to midnight", but Trondheim was shorter. :)

Soave_Fanciulla

November 5th, 2012, 04:52 PM

Schigolch

November 5th, 2012, 08:55 PM

I watched this staging live at Teatro Real.

It fits nicely, though after watching several Wilson's stagings you can easily predict what will happen with the next one.

Soave_Fanciulla

November 5th, 2012, 10:00 PM

I watched this staging live at Teatro Real.

It fits nicely, though after watching several Wilson's stagings you can easily predict what will happen with the next one.

Yes, variety is not really in his vocabulary!