Schiller goes naked … again

Schiller goes naked … again

News

norman lebrecht

August 16, 2021

In a regression to 20th century emptymindedness, director Martin Kušej got most of his cast to strip off in a showing of Schiller’s Mary Stuart at the Salzburg Festival.

This is one of the less offensive images, showing Bibiana Beglau as Elizabeth, Queen of England, with her court.

Photo: Matthias Horn / Salzburg Festival

Comments

  • Richard says:

    Steady the Buffs…

  • M McAlpine says:

    When the director runs out of ideas, off come the clothes. Empty headed morons!

  • Kairos says:

    Tut-tut. Martin Kušej is a very accomplished stage director. He knows what he does, whether one likes his stagings or not, and whether or not one does find it annoying (I do) to see naked people on stage. (By the way, isn’t it somewhat inconsequential that this blog, of all blogs, expresses indignation about bare skin in public? Lol)

    • Petros LInardos says:

      Why inconsequential? It’s Salzburg.

    • Sue Sonata Form says:

      Oh, I don’t know. I fancy there are still SOME standards left in the civilized world, difficult though they may be to find. And it isn’t just ‘bare skin in public’ really, is it? You can see that down the street any day of the week.

  • Stan says:

    If somebody wants to go into opera, is it best to start at the bottom?

  • mary says:

    Yes, it’s cheap shock value (that no longer shocks, by the way), but, I have nothing against nudity in general or on stage in particular, so much ado over so few inches of hog gut (as Toni Morrison so memorably put it in one of her Nobel Prize winning novels).

  • christopher storey says:

    To describe a mind as being in a state of “emptymindedness” presupposes that there is a mind to be empty. Unlikely in this case, methinks

  • Fred Funk says:

    It ain’t over until the fat viola player strips.

  • Sue Sonata Form says:

    Gym porn.

  • Dan says:

    This is just so despicable and tasteless.
    Where can I find the rest of the images of Bibiana Beglau?

  • Sir David Geffen-Hall says:

    I’m all for stripping but that young lady in the picture does not look healthy.

    Is it her or the part?

  • GC says:

    To art its freedom

  • Save the MET says:

    More politically motivated Eurotrash. Look if you want to put on a play with nudity, put on “Oh, Calcutta”, “Salome”, or better yet, write your own nude play. If you want to put on someone else’s work that was written to be performed in a certain period, keep it in the period. Salzburg sells out every year, so you don’t have to worry about alerting the voyeurs and pervs to come out of the shadows to fill seats.

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