Top German director calls time on his career

Top German director calls time on his career

main

norman lebrecht

February 26, 2018

Hans Neuenfels has said his production of Pique Dame at this summer’s Salzburg Festival will probably be his last.

‘I’ve done enough,’ he told the Berliner Zeitung.

Neuenfels, 76, is renowned for a Bayreuth Lohengrin in which the chorus was dressed as rats.

 

Comments

  • Doug says:

    “I’ve done enough……damage.”

  • RW2013 says:

    … “will probably be his last”…
    He’s said “I’ve done enough” many times before.
    Time to stop.

  • Leo says:

    Thank god.

  • Carlo says:

    A really good news!!! Too late

  • Razz Matazz says:

    Could someone please drop a hint to Calixto Bieito?

  • Leo says:

    The people who hire these Regie-lunatics again and again are the ones to be held accountable. The ones arrogantly ignoring both musicians and public, and destroying opera systematically on ideological grounds.
    Mostly intendants, agents, but in the case of Germany, where most of it happens – also the politicians responsible, who are mostly ignorant and don’t even care.

    • Bylle Binder says:

      And when they care they don’t want to go against the press and our super-intellectual reviewers. It’s a bit like in the fairy tale “the emperor’s new clothes”.

      • Leo says:

        The culture press is rigged. They often get reviews dictated to them. And if some critic gets too independent to express a different opinion (not to say, god forbid, a learned one!) they elegantly get thrown out.
        I personally know a critic who was almost fired because he was caught by his editor studying the score before reviewing a new production.

        “The more intellectual they are, the less intelligent they are”
        (Sergiu Celibidache)

        • David R Osborne says:

          Celebidache said that? I am feeling newfound respect for someone who to be honest is not my favourite conductor.

          • Leo says:

            Yes. He was a staunch critic of the after-war avant-garde. Similarly, also Furtwängler was against this sort of intellectualism per se.
            Such voices were diligently silenced, as the avant-garde served political purposes.

          • Bylle Binder says:

            I remember “Celi” from his time in Stuttgart – I was having friends in his orchestra and they whined often about him. He certainly wasn’t a “nice” person, but I loved his Bruckner and his candid comments about the scene and colleagues.

  • David R Osborne says:

    Ten comments and all derisive of Regietheater? Better make that eleven.

  • almaviva says:

    I’ll believe it when I see it. He certainly has repeated that in the past.

  • MOST READ TODAY: