Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.classica
Titolo: How to Opera Germanly

copio e incollo da un altro NG... buone risate!
NB: al punto 1, ricordatevi che in inglese "director" vuol dire 
"regista", non "direttore d'orchestra"!
How to Opera Germanly:
1) The director is the most important personality involved in the
production. His vision must supercede 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) Story-telling is anathema to the modern director, like 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, hopefully when the
  music is
soft. Be careful to keep dangerous objects at the lip of the stage so
  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 a white mask 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 it doesn't interfere with your staging ideas. Not much harm in
listening to the CD once, though that is not really your job.
24) Make the conductor feel useful, though he is 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)

 listening to the CD once, though that is not really your job.
Di solito il regista di nome *non* legge il libretto prima dell'inizio
delle prove in quanto questo potrebbe condizionare la sua ispirazione.
(Sembra una battuta ma non lo č - Sawallisch piantņ una Walkyria alla
Scala quando si accorse che Ronconi non sapeva che Grane č il cavallo di
Brunhilde).
Aggiungo che, per quanto sacrosante, le istruzioni qui sopra ignorano il
ruolo del Dramaturg (uno scagnozzo del regista tedesco incaricato di
trovare un Konzept da esporre nel programma di sala, e di operare le
necessarie modifiche al libretto).
-- 
Luca Logi - Firenze - Italy        e-mail: 
ll...@dada.it
   Home page: 
http://www.angelfire.com/ar/archivarius
                   (musicologia pratica)

 necessarie modifiche al libretto).
rofl

 copio e incollo da un altro NG... buone risate!
ROTFL. Grazie del copia-incolla :-)
M.