Great directors

[wahnfried]

Maybe Wieland Wagner, the grandson, was the most important director of the operas of Richard Wagner after WWII.

He reduced the stage totally (probably due to the expensive costs of an opera production of Wagner in those days) and concentrated everything on the singers and movements. But it does him no justice to say it was an empty stage he present. He was in later years strongly influenced by Freud, Bloch or Adorno. Unfortunately only two operas were recorded completely. Sadly enough in black and white (Valkyrie and Tristan) . His work with colours was extremly important.

The only production by Wieland I saw was the "Flying Dutchman" in Hamburg. Though aestheticly it came from the 50ies (I saw it 30 years later) it was an overwhelming experience. No later production could even scratch on it.

Tristan from Osaka (taped after his death)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVUWs3wO55Q

The last "Meistersinger" production, set in an Shakespearian surrounding and as every other production highly met with hostility.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=psnJXrITGlg

[wahnfried]

Here's an excerpt from "Valkyrie" with the extremly young and criticized Anja Silja. It is from his latest "Ring"- production originally cast with Nilsson and Böhm in Bayreuth.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRQoVnO2m8w

[Wanderer]

Emotionally I'm a bit anti-Wieland because I don't like his involvement with the Nazis, and from some of what I've heard, he had some not very attractive character traits. He seems to be regarded as one of the great Wagner directors, though - and some say he is one of the most important directors of twentieth century Germany. His sets and techniques were controversial when they first appeared though; a lot of visitors to Bayreuth, so I read, did not like the changes!

Did Wieland bring in the changes partly to draw a line behind the Winifred/Nazi years? I can't help but wonder whether that could have been a factor, especially considering Wieland's own closeness to Hitler. On more practical grounds, I read that Wieland's sets were cheaper than they might have been had he kept to the old style - and in the period just after the war, cost must have been an important consideration!

I enjoyed all of those clips you posted. Would Meistersinger have been a brave opera for Wieland to take on in the post-war years? I'm thinking of the fact that it seems to be (wrongly, in my view) associated with the ideology of the Nazis by some critics.

I'm not in a strong position to judge directors because I've not physically been to any Wagner performances, although I have watched a few on DVD and some odd clips on Youtube. One impression I get, though, is that directors are never going to please everybody. Whatever they do or do not do, they please some people and displease others!

Now that Wagner himself is dead and no longer writing new operas or making changes to his existing ones...I suppose the role of the director is becoming more and more important? Some of them have been quite innvovative. In Keith Warner's 'Ring' (currently being performed at the Royal Opera House) Alberich is portrayed as some kind of mad scientists doing experiments on the Nibelungs during his brief reign of terror.

[wahnfried]

Well, I must say I admire Wieland a lot. Of course not because of his role he was playing through the "III. Reich". But he was a great director with a new vison. And this new look on old stuff he created (with a lot of help by his wife) certainly because he wanted to make a break between pre and post war times. And he certainly did that for earnest and honest reasons. What I never will understand is that he never spoke of his involvement in the Nazi terror during the war times. And I don't mean that both the children were calling Hitler "Uncle Wolf". Concerning Wieland there was much more. I don't blame him for his role in Nazi Germany, I blame him for the silence afterwards.

But we have to understand the times after WWII. It was not easy for Wieland creating a totally new style whilst all the old supporters of Wagner/Hitler were still living in Bayreuth with his mother at the top of them. And no one of them wanted to hear a word of remorse.

But again: How should we deal with geniuses (and he certainly was one) with doubtful characters? There are so many of them, starting even with his grandfather.

What I really admired is his kind of work that put new lights on Wagner without raping him wich is so normal today on stage. I think, as far as I know his work, he had a kind of eternal approach so different from todays productions wich either presents only a different comment on actual worlds affair or just a big event like Wagner in Valencia.

The Meistersinger he only procuded twice in Bayreuth (after WWII) and he had a lot of difficulties with it. The second one, wich is visible on youtube was also for most of the critics a big failure. He never got the right connection to it.