Stefan Herheim "Parsifal" is far removed from Wagner's dedication game. He will bring the Grail Knights arrive in the present. A conversation with one of the most sought after opera directors of our time.
Stefan Herheim: I'm now at home in Berlin and I noticed that everything from there via television and through phone calls, of course, with my family and friends. One is simply speechless. This is a new dimension to the violence, if such a disturbed person to know how these bombers with such a cunning force, with the intelligence of how to inflict the most damage, that alone. It was thought at first yes, this is a professional international terrorism. But that one man stands behind it, this is a dimension that is not tangible.
One would not expect that something like this happens in Norway.
Anyway, not at all. Of this we have always been spared so far, thank God. But the country has of course to the roots torn up and upset. This is a wound that will not take long to heal.
Here in Your Bayreuth "Parsifal" production is taken up by 2008. If you see them after a few years back now, would you do that today just as back then?
In essence, I think: Yes, that's still very, very strong. It's not like I go back and look at an old job, there is a "work in progress" in some respects. There are new singer here, she must work hard and it is only a short time available for samples. And of course there are moments, scenes, situations where I say, I'd like crazy now - are addressed from a different angle - as part of the concept. But that would then mean that you also need some new costumes, would also have to work on the decoration. Because the possibilities are obviously limited.
In the past there have been performances at the end of the second act, when they roll out flags with the swastika, even boos and protests in the audience today are not. So what has changed since?
Stefan Herheim
I experience not only here but in many performances. Because something is brought to the point in a way, as people might not expect it, as they have not seen it yet. The suspect is behind it now, just a desire to provoke, to blind provocation, perhaps. And then it just takes a certain maturity, a time, a reception history. The course then develops over the years. But mainly, I think the audience will judge this without pressure from outside. One approach is unbiased and I think everyone realizes that this is in itself a very positive affair that goes up on this rail history and come to a conclusion must, and therefore there is not really an alternative to power of these images.
Where do you keep on because during the performance?
In the auditorium. I'm always pure in my own performance. This is very important to me. For the test work and dealing with the work, with the singers on the sample stage is one thing. I never really consider as art. The art comes only in the confrontation with the audience, opening up for something. And if these membranes between the auditorium and stage in vibration, are set in motion, then everyone will enjoy it too different things. But two thousand people just sit together in a dark room to experience first of all feel the same and to this extent also in the same boat. There is a revival of the theater, a revival. And this process I would not want to miss. Since I'm always happy to go and also very critical of me for using the responses that I feel there. If an idea really works, you really only know if the audience is there.
Opera singers are indeed very often rumored that they were very bad actors. What experience do you do as director here in Bayreuth?
Basically, the course work in Bayreuth is very special because people who make over the whole year around the world, professional opera to voluntarily spend their summer vacation here to make Wagner in Wagner's own house, in Wagner's own theater. They come with a very high standard of the "total work of art" as Wagner called it himself. To that extent it has actually never been a problem here in terms of motivation. You also have the peace and an incredible focus on the new manufacturing production. And that was a unique experience to be working here. This is of course not, not even here locally. This needs to be protected and preserved. As I see it coming now also have problems, because it has changed a lot in recent years. For the existing productions, but also with new productions certainly far too little time is available to develop and achieve a goal. That has a lot to do with finances.
So, I'm certainly not someone who rejoices with his own provocation, in the sense that now I come to you and throw something on the head. Provocation is a phenomenon that exists throughout all levels of life. Of course, even more so in art. We need to look at us and then seen again in this process. And there are no children stories that run on the stage. The yes no pure, pleasurable illusion are stories that are told there, but it comes to sausages, to say the then another. It is a very existential philosophical, psychological conflicts, which just reflect the existence in its entirety, to us as human beings again and again to question. Been, we believe that this Wagner's operas, even then, when they came out, safe, pretty and beautiful. Quite the contrary! That was dramatic, fresh, new, spectacular theater, which of course is very, very much resistance encountered. In retrospect, these processes are transfigured.
What we can actually opera, musical theater today what we can say?
It can tell us everything that we can not say anything. There is a question of how to do it, how to deal with what it has to be at all. And that's a question that must be constantly redefined. It has been very, very much transformed by our cultural history, between the middle class today and this seemingly elitist claim. The opera is more popular than ever. There are now built in Europe is still new and expensive opera houses. But opera has to legitimize itself increasingly from the inside out and turn to living people as a living art form. If the opera seems dead as an art form, it is because people who exercise and the hermeneutic, possibly even dead. I just hope, again and again to prove that I am a man of flesh and blood, who is fighting for the right to life. And I just love this very debate in the collective.
Bruno Mars Albums, Music & Videos
How great is your diary, what are your major new projects?
Now yes the great Jubilee Year 2013 is upon us. The 200th Birthday of Richard Wagner. But Giuseppe Verdi is celebrated. I have a lot of Wagner made in recent years. Now I devote myself more Verdi. And go to houses with large productions, in which I have never worked until now. Even in European countries where I was before. My calendar is full until 2017. So from there I can not complain. Rather, it is so that you would think from time to time, it would be nice to have a bit more flexibility, a little bit to respond spontaneously to things, but on the other hand, there is also a great blessing that comes with the tide.
But you will not feel dizzy when you look at your agenda, right?
Occasionally one takes a bit of panic when you realize just that one lags behind, for example, purely temporal. All this costs just very, very not lose too much power and it is also necessary to connect to the reality of ordinary life. Yes we draw out of life. And if there sometime just running by itself and is served, what is for oneself has become a routine, then there is the risk that you really just repeats instead of renewing.
Stefan Herheim: I'm now at home in Berlin and I noticed that everything from there via television and through phone calls, of course, with my family and friends. One is simply speechless. This is a new dimension to the violence, if such a disturbed person to know how these bombers with such a cunning force, with the intelligence of how to inflict the most damage, that alone. It was thought at first yes, this is a professional international terrorism. But that one man stands behind it, this is a dimension that is not tangible.
One would not expect that something like this happens in Norway.
Anyway, not at all. Of this we have always been spared so far, thank God. But the country has of course to the roots torn up and upset. This is a wound that will not take long to heal.
Here in Your Bayreuth "Parsifal" production is taken up by 2008. If you see them after a few years back now, would you do that today just as back then?
In essence, I think: Yes, that's still very, very strong. It's not like I go back and look at an old job, there is a "work in progress" in some respects. There are new singer here, she must work hard and it is only a short time available for samples. And of course there are moments, scenes, situations where I say, I'd like crazy now - are addressed from a different angle - as part of the concept. But that would then mean that you also need some new costumes, would also have to work on the decoration. Because the possibilities are obviously limited.
In the past there have been performances at the end of the second act, when they roll out flags with the swastika, even boos and protests in the audience today are not. So what has changed since?
Stefan Herheim
I experience not only here but in many performances. Because something is brought to the point in a way, as people might not expect it, as they have not seen it yet. The suspect is behind it now, just a desire to provoke, to blind provocation, perhaps. And then it just takes a certain maturity, a time, a reception history. The course then develops over the years. But mainly, I think the audience will judge this without pressure from outside. One approach is unbiased and I think everyone realizes that this is in itself a very positive affair that goes up on this rail history and come to a conclusion must, and therefore there is not really an alternative to power of these images.
Where do you keep on because during the performance?
In the auditorium. I'm always pure in my own performance. This is very important to me. For the test work and dealing with the work, with the singers on the sample stage is one thing. I never really consider as art. The art comes only in the confrontation with the audience, opening up for something. And if these membranes between the auditorium and stage in vibration, are set in motion, then everyone will enjoy it too different things. But two thousand people just sit together in a dark room to experience first of all feel the same and to this extent also in the same boat. There is a revival of the theater, a revival. And this process I would not want to miss. Since I'm always happy to go and also very critical of me for using the responses that I feel there. If an idea really works, you really only know if the audience is there.
Opera singers are indeed very often rumored that they were very bad actors. What experience do you do as director here in Bayreuth?
Basically, the course work in Bayreuth is very special because people who make over the whole year around the world, professional opera to voluntarily spend their summer vacation here to make Wagner in Wagner's own house, in Wagner's own theater. They come with a very high standard of the "total work of art" as Wagner called it himself. To that extent it has actually never been a problem here in terms of motivation. You also have the peace and an incredible focus on the new manufacturing production. And that was a unique experience to be working here. This is of course not, not even here locally. This needs to be protected and preserved. As I see it coming now also have problems, because it has changed a lot in recent years. For the existing productions, but also with new productions certainly far too little time is available to develop and achieve a goal. That has a lot to do with finances.
So, I'm certainly not someone who rejoices with his own provocation, in the sense that now I come to you and throw something on the head. Provocation is a phenomenon that exists throughout all levels of life. Of course, even more so in art. We need to look at us and then seen again in this process. And there are no children stories that run on the stage. The yes no pure, pleasurable illusion are stories that are told there, but it comes to sausages, to say the then another. It is a very existential philosophical, psychological conflicts, which just reflect the existence in its entirety, to us as human beings again and again to question. Been, we believe that this Wagner's operas, even then, when they came out, safe, pretty and beautiful. Quite the contrary! That was dramatic, fresh, new, spectacular theater, which of course is very, very much resistance encountered. In retrospect, these processes are transfigured.
What we can actually opera, musical theater today what we can say?
It can tell us everything that we can not say anything. There is a question of how to do it, how to deal with what it has to be at all. And that's a question that must be constantly redefined. It has been very, very much transformed by our cultural history, between the middle class today and this seemingly elitist claim. The opera is more popular than ever. There are now built in Europe is still new and expensive opera houses. But opera has to legitimize itself increasingly from the inside out and turn to living people as a living art form. If the opera seems dead as an art form, it is because people who exercise and the hermeneutic, possibly even dead. I just hope, again and again to prove that I am a man of flesh and blood, who is fighting for the right to life. And I just love this very debate in the collective.
Bruno Mars Albums, Music & Videos
Charice Pempengco Albums, Music & Videos
Christian Bautista Albums, Music & Videos
Jal Joshua Lebumfacil Albums, Music & Videos
Nicole Scherzinger Albums, Music & Videos
How great is your diary, what are your major new projects?
Now yes the great Jubilee Year 2013 is upon us. The 200th Birthday of Richard Wagner. But Giuseppe Verdi is celebrated. I have a lot of Wagner made in recent years. Now I devote myself more Verdi. And go to houses with large productions, in which I have never worked until now. Even in European countries where I was before. My calendar is full until 2017. So from there I can not complain. Rather, it is so that you would think from time to time, it would be nice to have a bit more flexibility, a little bit to respond spontaneously to things, but on the other hand, there is also a great blessing that comes with the tide.
But you will not feel dizzy when you look at your agenda, right?
Occasionally one takes a bit of panic when you realize just that one lags behind, for example, purely temporal. All this costs just very, very not lose too much power and it is also necessary to connect to the reality of ordinary life. Yes we draw out of life. And if there sometime just running by itself and is served, what is for oneself has become a routine, then there is the risk that you really just repeats instead of renewing.
No comments:
Post a Comment