It was produced by the MET and the Vienna Festwochen — they are the lead producers — and the co-producers are Aix, the Holland Festival, and La Scala.

otherwise, thanks?

I loved the Alden Don Giovanni at NYCO, but don’t we all have nights when we just want to see some magic on stage?

For myself, I don’t care whether a production sits idle in containers in the MET’s storage lot, or plays and stores in L.A. and Brussels between revivals at Lincoln Center.

I don’t think many savvy operagoers would weep if Rosenkavalier [were] replaced.

I would. (Oh, but I suppose that makes me not-savvy.) Not because I find it unimprovable, or think that it has weathered the decades in fresh form; but because any replacement is unlikely to be better (we could get lucky, I suppose), and given the frequency of the opera’s return, it will pretty quickly look shabby and spottily rehearsed itself.

There has certainly been some precedent for carefully prepared new productions of fringe repertory at the Volpe-era Met, that played a relatively compact run with mostly unchanging cast. Wouldn’t Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Makropulos, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Moses und Aron, Doktor Faust, The Gambler, and Rodelinda fall into this category? (Allowing for a quibble over one or another of the titles.)

The only innovation here is that chez Volpe, the mindset of the Met was so focused on business as usual and butts in seats, nobody seriously questioned the questionable artistic standard of programming 12-15 performances of Boheme every season to the neglect of other works. (Really in those days the only time the Met did anything out of the ordinary it was because Levine wanted the musical challenge, or, rarely, because a star singer had a pet project.)

From the House of the Dead is not a vehicle for conductor or star; rather, it’s a vehicle for the opera house and the audience. That’s an entirely new concept, i.e., framing the Met as a showcase for genius instead of a garage for singers.

The Met has done some staged non-standard (at least for its audiences) repertory in the past, and it may be FTHOTD is being overhyped partly because of the dissatisfaction with Tosca, Sonnambula, Lucia, among the dud productions of recent years.

People went going crazy over Fille when it premiered, but it too was a shared production, and hardly in the same league as the 2006 Barbiere.

I can think of other productions, the old Frau, the 1971 Tristan, the Karajan/Schneider-Siemssen Walkure the previous Les Troyens, that were often praised to the skies when they premiered. But as the decades rolled by, these productions lost much of their luster and many were happy to see them replaced.

I don’t think many savvy operagoers would weep if Rosenkavalier replaced.

I will not mourn the loss of the Zeffirelli Carmen production with its gargantuan hanging lace tablecloths, Toreador Song staged as a glitzy musical comedy number, and the idiotic addition of a crazed young man repeatedly attacking a horse and rider from behind during the scene when the girls pour out of the factory for Carmen’s arrest. Zeffirelli pandered whorishly to the tourist bus segment of the MET’s audience that reveled in empty, meaningless spectacle.

House of the Dead may well be just too prickly musically for a mass audience at the MET, but who knows? A group of men carrying a toy eagle around the stage might just become as iconic an image as a group on women lying face down on it.

The Ring videos and the “Queen Margot” film convinced me Chereau is a superior director, who understands how people connect emotionally and physically and the elation and destructive outcome that can result from such bondings.

The reported six-week rehearsal at the Met period for FTHOTD obviously paid off and I’m certainly looking forward to the 12/5 matinee. Squirrel’s review is a good guide to what to look for in the production.

As for other possible Chereau projects at the Met, I’d love to see him direct a new “Tannhaueser”. Others who post here will doubless have different suggestions, but the main thing is to bring him back.

Unlike some many of his director counterparts, Chereau’s work is carefully considered, brimming with passion and integrity and though FTHOTD didn’t originate at the Met, it apparently is a milestone in the company’s history.

House of the Dead is essentially a stagione system import. In order to achieve that ensemble quality on a consistent basis, Gelb will need to look at whole scale restructuring. The discomfort to his audience will be great.