Right the first time, WindyCityOperaMan! Last week’s Regie quiz was indeed Das Rheingold — as envisioned by Barrie Kosky for Staatsoper Hannover. You will forgive La Cieca for saying that either the quizzes are getting too easy or the cher public are getting too smart! As such, your doyenne has put her back into it…
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
A snippet of the Berlin Lohengrin directed by Stefan Herheim, who is rapidly becoming one of La Cieca’s favorite Regisseurs!
After seeing a video excerpt from the Met’s Patrice Chéreau production of From the House of the Dead, I was struck by the cleanness of it all, the sets, the costumes, the tastefully muted colors, and the direction. No doubt it is moving, in its way, but is it relevant? It looks like generic suffering…
On the heels of this, may I direct everyone’s attention to a funny and fascinating article about Stefan Herheim‘s production of Lohengrin from last spring at Berliner Staatsoper? Now we know what to do with those old costumes and sets that gather dust! [via the wellsungs]
Smartly done, Kashania, who guessed almost immediately that last week’s Regie quiz represented From the House of the Dead — in a production by Calixto Bieito, by the way. But even oil drums, truck tires and life-sized airplanes suspended over the stage might look a little prim in contrast to this week’s puzzler:
The Met’s new production of Janacek’s From the House of the Dead sets high standards for the company, but as an indicator of the Gelb Era, it may be too good to be true.
Noel Dahling hedged his bets, but one of those bets paid off: no, that wasn’t Liù in the body bag, but it was in fact Siegfried — which means, of course, the opera was Götterdämmerung. For those among you who are devotees of the Regie art, the production is by La Fura dels baus.
Is it just me, or does this seem like using From the House of the Dead as a club to beat a dead horse?
The day after opening the 2009-10 season with Hugo Weisgall’s Esther, New York City opera presented one of the most beloved operas in the entire repertoire, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, in a new production by Christopher Alden.
The ArtHaus Musik DVD of the Deutsches Nationaltheater/Staatskapelle Weimar production of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, stage directed by Michael Shulz, begins with a long still shot: That’s right, this interpretation of Wagner’s epic 19-hour cycle kicks off with a long static shot of… some dirty red boots. It’s gonna be a long Gesamtkunstwerk.
parterre fave Peter Konwitschny has returned to his métier, directing a new production of Salome — with a happy ending! Following the jump are excerpts from an interview with the director in Volksrant, translated by Our Own Freniac.
Well, Sanford definitely wins the prize for the best mot of the week (in addition to his uncontested status as biggest ‘mo of the year) for his comment about last week’s Regie quiz. The opera pictured above is apparently taking place in a rehearsal hall, so he guessed it must be called Zar und Mary…
This production of Der Rosenkavalier (directed by Stefan Herheim for Staatstheater Stuttgart) looks fascinating:
Mean, moody, magnificent Mariusz Kwiecien gets the Regie treatment (including a buzzcut!) for a new Don Giovanni in Munich.
Two weeks the cher public have had to ponder our most recent Regie quiz, and yet none of the usual suspects were able to work out the obvious clues. A Victorian ingenue and her doting father are interviewed by an Italian fascist in a Rita Hayworth wig?
Maestro Wenarto shows us how Tosca should be done… as directed by that exciting Regie wunderkind Luc Bondage.
A different look at Salome — from the Deutsche Oper am Rhein.
First was littoraldrift, but funniest was Krunoslav in our most recent and (as one might say) entry-level Regie quiz, the answer to which was rather too obviously Falstaff. So, on to something more challenging this week, after the jump.
I’m not sure who I find more annoying – the partisans who vigorously defend Luc Bondy‘s production of Tosca at the Met or those who decry it. As Bondy’s production replaces one of the Met’s signature offerings, both groups have seized on this event as a watershed event in the history of opera in America…
La Cieca congratulates matto per la lirica for identifying our most recent Regie quiz: Offenbach’s L’Ile de Tulipatan — as performed at the Wiener Kammeroper, with Waut Koeken directing. And now for something completely different.
The subject of the controversy: that most insidious and invasive attack on American culture since fluoridation or women’s suffrage, operatic stage direction. The conspirators: the ilk of Peter Gelb, Patrice Chéreau, Luc Bondy and Bartlett Sher, “instigated” by Paul Holdengräber. The meeting place: that hotbed of radical thought the New York Public Library (Fifth Avenue at…
First things first: congratulations to lorenzo.venezia who recognized Rigoletto in that crinoline. And now: who are all these people, and why are they having such a good time?
Hans Lick (not pictured) called it! Yes, that’s right, our previous Regie quiz depicted a production of Wagner’s Siegfried. This Inszenierung (for Theater Lübeck) was by Anthony Pilavachi. Now, who’s inszeniering whom here?
A whole month it’s been since our last Regie quiz, when the opera depicted was admittedly a lesser-known work, Rossini’s La scala di seta. More tomfoolery in sleek modern interiors may be found in this week’s quiz, after the jump.
A Baroque Valentine’s with Opera Lafayette | Feb | DC & NYC
Celebrate love in all its guises with tender ballads, amorous duets, cheeky verses, and bawdy drinking songs plus food, cocktails and wine.
