Paris books Calixto Bieito for anniversary Ring
OperaAlexander Neef, head of the Paris Opera, said yesterday that he had inherited Ring plans from his predecessor but he was happy to ‘give a touch of Spanish colour’ to the 150th anniversary of Wagner’s monumental first production.
Bieito (pictured), like Wagner, loves nothing better than provoking the bourgeoisie. His Triatan in Vienna was described as ‘
terrible and dilettante
‘. His conductor in Paris will be the reassuring Pablo Heras-Casado.
What could possibly go wrong?
Also in the 2024-25 season are Offenbach’s Les Brigands, staged by Barrie Kosky and a Peter Sellars- Teodor Currentzis version of Rameau’s Castor et Pollux. A new Wajdi Mouawad production of Pelléas et Melisande will feature Huw Montague Rendall and Sabine Devieilhe in the title roles. Asmik Grigorian will make a belated Partis debut.
What could go wrong? Well, depending on your viewpoint, everything of course — or, everything could go just right. One thing for sure, it won’t be boring. I saw Mr. Bieito’s direction of Armide in 2009 at the Komische Open in Berlin and, needless to say, it was something you won’t be seeing anytime soon in a country such as the United States, where the ambient puritanism would immediately unleash a whole slew of frivolous lawsuits.
We need artists such as Mr. Bieito, for they are the ones who challenge our points of view and truly disrupt an art form which often falls into the most predictable, insipid and inane form of conventionalism. The whole point of attending an opera production (or any work of art, really) is not to be coddled into one’s pre-existing sense of comfort, but on the contrary, to be challenged into considering uncomfortable truths and viewpoints opposite to those we currently hold.
One last note — he is Catalan, as opposed to Spanish — though Catalonia is indeed part of Spain, but that’s a very important cultural difference which the Paris Opera’s administration should probably rectify.
“often falls into the most predictable, insipid and inane form of conventionalism.”
This is what exactly Bieito does. You see one staging, you see them all.
He may have been purposely shocking once, but you can only put mustache on Mona Lisa so many times. Which is why Dada only lasted a few short years and why is it time to hire artists that truly have something new and innovative to say.
How many of Bieito’s stagings have you seen?
His production of Parsifal was as different from his production of Carmen as that was from his production of La forza del destino.
Enough not to want to see more of his. Life is too short for garbage.
No, we do not need “artists” like Bieito. We need artists who can respect the score and the libretto, without imposing some vision of their own. If only he had the guts or vision to write his own opera (or commission one) so he can have his own point of view without imposing it on someone else.
All I can say is ‘Write your own damn opera!’
He’s not Catalan, though. Born in Burgos (Castile), his family moved to Catalonia when he was an adolescent.
Poor Paris, poor Wagner…
The picture looks exactly like an audience member having just watched one of Bieito’s productions.
More like one having endured one of your creations….
Not at all – more like someone who has involuntarily hit upon one of those silly utterances of a ‘professional musician’.
The accompanying photo graces the cover of the program book for Vlaamse Opera’sBieito production of Tannhäuser, ca. 2018. It actually has nothing to do with the production, but it does get your attention.
Oh, not Huw Montague Rendall and Sabine Devieilhe again!! Weren’t Landridge and Stratas available?
Or Jose van Dam?
And the production is staged by Wajdi Mouawad, responsible for the ridiculous production of Oedipe – the costume design was especially laughable. Too bad, because musically it was as good an Oedipe as one could have hoped to hear today, and Ingo Metzmacher was more inspired than at Salzburg a few years before.
No, Philip’s been gone over 10 years now. (And it’s Langridge).
A new staging of Offenbach’s “Les Brigands” might reflect some of Europe’s current anxieties. It has scenes “on the border between Spain and Italy” and soldiers (the royal carbiniers) who “always arrive too late,” because their loud marching with stomping boots alerts the enemy in advance.
I’m not sure any conductor today has as much of a “hidden” reputation for being a complete arse-hole (which isn’t actually a secret) as does Heras-Casado. New York City’s Orchestra of St Luke’s ran him out of town. Guy’s a complete ego maniac. I enjoyed working with him!
He certainly wasn´t at the SWR( i played a few times under him) and in Bayreuth.
I haven’t heard a single recording by him that was not bad.
So Currentzis? What next, Gergiev? The West behaves as if nothing is happening close to its easternmost borders.
Recently the NSO in Washington announced its season and its full of Russian music, and even performers announced as “Moscow born”. Cancelling Russian music is absurd, but having it represent about one third to one half of the season is a slap on the face of Ukraine. I am seriously thinking not renewing my subscription, even though I like Noseda’s music making.
As for Paris, the less said, the better.
Who the hell and why the hell does anyone still keeps hiring this talentless catastrophe of a director?
I’ve been to many premieres of Calixto (out of curiosity to watch an other disaster lol). After each and every production Calixto was booed off the stage at the curtain calls, and very rightly so.
His productions are soulless, unnecessarily perverse, stupidly unimaginative, boring, visually disgusting. I guess there is some mafia at work. I know NOBODY who would say “Oh Calixto Bieito does good productions, he is a good director”.
He certainly wasn’t booed on the opening night performance of “Silbersee”in Mannheim. Quite the opposite.
Aah yes, Mannheim. Thats the level of this director. In Mannheim the audience is happy to see any opera at their provincial theatre, and the german audience is used to eurotrash-crappy, cheap, disgusting looking budget productions sincenthe 70s anyway.
I saw his Lohengrin at the Staatsoper unter den Linden. In a word: yuk.
Very beautiful. That is why we collect and cherish the Rings from, say, the 1950s. Today’s Classica, the French magazine, reviews a brand new Ring: 4 stars (=fair try but not really convincing) to Rheingold, 1 star (=abysmal, lowest mark possible) to Siegfried, and 2 stars for the other two. Put all the steam in the wacko directors and this is what you get.