It aint over...

... 'til the fat lady's stabbed?
Heather MacDonald in a long, depressing essay on the phenomenon of Regietheater (director's theatre), an unwelcome development in Europe where operas are debased with all manner of gratuitous violence, explicit sexual acts and debauchery, including orgies and massacres. The 'modern' restaging and reinterpretation is completely at odds with the composers' original intentions. An example from The Abduction from the Seraglio:

"neither the streetwalkers nor the whippings, masturbation, and transvestite bondage are anywhere suggested in Mozart’s opera... the leading soprano, Constanze -who has already suffered digital violation during a poignant lament - is beaten and then held down and forced to watch as the pasha’s servant, Osmin, first forces a prostitute to perform fellatio on him and then gags the prostitute and slashes her to death."

This is cultural vandalism of the highest order, especially given Europe's gargantuan musical legacy and centrality to Western (and world) high culture. Monumental masterpieces that have given untold pleasure to millions the world over are mutilated beyond recognition. Rejecting such abasement (quite rightfully, imo) current generations are robbed of the grand opera experience. Not just the staggering technical virtuosity, or the unparalled divinity of the music, but the timeless and universal appeal of the underlying stories, themes and morals - love, passion, despair, intrigue, tragedy - that transcends generations and geography.

No doubt the operas themselves, the musical scores and libretti, will outlive this current crop of nihilistic, barbarian directors. But the unfortunate trend may persist for some time as many European opera houses are heavily subsidised, so the profanity will continue despite audiences abandoning performances in protest. Singers and musicians, mindful of their career prospects, fear being blacklisted as troublemakers should they object.

Yet there is hope. An unlikely saviour for Europe's artistic demise could be America, in particular New York's Metropolitan Opera. Because the arts receive so little federal funding in the U.S. (at least by European standards), Americans - a sensible and pragmatic people - would never patronise en masse such depraved, debilitated opera. Regietheater could never survive the harsh commercial realities of the U.S. marketplace; only the most excellent, most elite productions can prosper. It seems almost paradoxical that the Land of the Free, the driving force of global pop-culture, could now become the curator and guardian to one of the pinnacles of European cultivation. We can only cheer them on.