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aus der englischsprachigen Opera-L-Liste
How to Opera Germanly:
1) The director is the most important personality involved in the
production. His vision must supersede the needs of the composer,
librettist, singers, and, especially, the audience, those overfed
fools who want to be entertained and moved.
2) The second most important personality is the set designer.
3) Comedy is verboten, except when unintentional. Wit is for
TV-watching idiots.
4) Great acting is hyperintensity, with much rolling on the ground,
groping the wall, and sitting on a bare floor.
5) The audience's attention must be on anything except the person who
is singing. A solo aria, outmoded even in the last century, must be
accompanied by extraneous characters expressing their angst in
trivial ways near, on, or about the person singing the aria.
6) Storytelling is anathema to the modern director, just as realistic
photographic painting is to the abstract painter. Don't tell the
story; COMMENT on it! Even better, UNDERMINE it!
7) When singing high notes, the singer must be crumpled over, lying
down, or facing the back of the stage.
8) The music must stop once in a while for intense, obscure miming.
9) Sexual scenes must be charmless and aggressive. Rolling on the
floor a must here.
10) Unmotivated homosexual behavior must be introduced a few times
during the evening.
11) Happy endings are intellectually bankrupt. Play the opposite.
Insert a sudden murder, if at all possible.
12) Avoid entertaining the audience at all costs. If they boo, you
have succeeded.
13) Rehearse it until it's dead. Very important.
14) Any suggestion of the beauty and mystery of nature must be
avoided at all costs! The set must be trivial, contemporary, and
decrepit! Don't forget the fluorescent lights! (Klieg lights also acceptable.)
15) The audience must not know when to applaud or when the scene/act ends.
16) Historical atrocities such as the Holocaust or the AIDS epidemic
must be incorporated and exploited as much as possible. Also, the
lifestyle of the audience must be mocked.
17) Colors are culinary. Black, white, and gray only!
18) The chorus must be bald, sexless, faceless, and in trench coats.
19) If the audience is bored, this is art.
20) Props are items of junk piled in a corner of the set. They must
be overused pointlessly, then dropped on the floor, preferably when
the music is soft. Be careful to keep dangerous objects at the lip of
the stage so that the blindfolded dancers can kick them into the pit.
21) All asides must be sung next to the person who is not supposed to
hear them.
22) The leading performers' faces must be painted as white masks to
ensure no individuality or variety of expressions, as opera singers
can't act anyway. They just want to pose and make pretty sounds.
23) Preparation is important. Try to read the libretto in advance to
make sure that it doesn't interfere with your staging ideas. Not much
harm in listening to the CD once, though that's not really your job.
24) Make the conductor feel useful, though he's really a literal-minded hack.
25) The stage director must avoid any idea that is not his own,
though that idea will surely be on this list already.
26) A costume must serve at least two of the following criteria: a)
Make the singer look unattractive b) Obscure his vision c) Make
hearing the orchestra difficult d) Impede movement d) Contradict the
period in which the opera is set (hardly worth mentioning)
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La chance d'avoir du talent ne suffit pas ; il faut encore le talent d'avoir de la chance.
Hector Berlioz
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