Archive for the ‘Rough and Regie’ Category
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, […]
Read the rest of this article »
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
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on Ring Recycle
Friday, November 4th, 2011
by James Jorden “I’ve almost come to the conclusion that this Mr. Hitler isn’t a Christian,” muses merry murderess Abby Brewster early in the first act of Arsenic and Old Lace, and to tell the truth I’m beginning to think I’m almost as far behind the curve as she was. Recent new productions at the […]
Read the rest of this article »
Tags: anna netrebko, james jorden, leonard bernstein, Mahler, music director, musicalamerica, new york times, period costume, peter gelb, pr, richard wagner, robert lepage, Street Car Named Desire, the met, verdi, willy decker, Zurich
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on Peter’s Principles
Saturday, October 8th, 2011
By James Jorden The Metropolitan Opera debut of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, an amazing 180 years into the work’s history, won mostly respectful reviews last week—in between snipes at Anna Netrebko’s momentary breaking of character during the “Tower Scene.” A common thread in both published and popular opinion, though, was that the piece itself was not […]
Read the rest of this article »
Tags: anna netrebko, atys, black and white, Black Swan, carnegie hall, david mcvicar, donizetti, franco zeffirelli, glamour, john dexter, josef svoboda, joseph volpe, la traviata, lincoln center, live performance, metropolitan opera, new york observer, period costume, regie, repertoire
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on The Unglamorous Life
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011
BY JAMES JORDEN Two monochromatic color schemes, two towering box sets, two wardrobes of lavish period costumes, two ensemble casts, two authentic orchestras—even two brightly-colored dream sequences: There are more than a few superficial similarities between two big-scale revivals playing in New York this week: Atys at BAM and Follies at the Marquis Theater on […]
Read the rest of this article »
Tags: broadway baby, broadway revival, james jorden, william christie
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on Proof of Concept
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
By James Jorden The critics’ reaction to Robert Lepage’s new production of Die Walküre at the Met leaves this contrarian reviewer in something of a quandary. Not only was pretty much everybody underwhelmed, but there was a consensus about what (they thought) was wrong: the clunkiness of The Machine, the lack of poetry in the […]
Read the rest of this article »
Tags: bryn terfel, Deborah Voigt, frammistans, hd, regie, robert lepage, the machine, the met, wagner
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on Horse play
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 […]
Read the rest of this article »
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
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on She sees dead people
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 […]
Read the rest of this article »
Tags: calixto bieito, gesamtkunstwerk, journey of a thousand miles, leather trench coats, parsifal, realism, regie, revivals, richard wagner, staatsoper stuttgart, symbols
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on Regie in its natural habitat
Saturday, April 9th, 2011
By James Jorden I apologize for long period (two months!) of radio silence: it’s been a very busy spring season in New York, broken up by a two week vacation my traveling companion and I called the “Regietournee,” a sampling of some of the opera direction going on in Germany (and other northern European theaters.) […]
Read the rest of this article »
Tags: barrie kosky, calixto bieito, doris doerrie, eurotrash, komische oper, otto schenk, regie, revivals, staatsoper unter den linden, symbols, the met
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on Berlin Diary
Friday, February 18th, 2011
By James Jorden I’m not the type to say “my head is still reeling,” but, go figure, my head is still reeling from seeing Vieux Carré performed by the Wooster Group last night. I’m not going to pretend to review this masterpiece (what could I say besides “oh, my God!” over and over again), but […]
Read the rest of this article »
Tags: regie, tennessee williams, wooster group
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on Fair and square
Friday, February 4th, 2011
By James Jorden It’s not hard to guess why Peter Gelb would choose to import a recreation of the original production of Nixon in China instead of devising a new staging from scratch. It would hardly be prudent to blow a million dollars on a six-performance run of a work unlikely to be revived any […]
Read the rest of this article »
Tags: Chiang Ching, english national opera, franco zeffirelli, houston grand opera, lincoln center, Mark Morris, new york city opera, peter gelb, peter sellars, ping pong diplomacy, puccini, republic of china, revivals, the met
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on Nixon in Amber