Vienna will recycle 50 operas next season
NewsWith tourists back and ticket sales rising to 98.5 percent, the Vienna State Opera has fallen back on its discredited ways of recycling old productions, barely rehearsed, every night of the year.
Among next season’s 11 new shows announced yesterday by intendant Bogdan Roščić are a Lohengrin conducted by Thielemann and a Turandot led by Franz Welser-Möst, starring Asmik Grigorian and Jonas Kaufmann.
Off the beaten rep, Alexander Raskatov’s Animal Farm will receive its Vienna premiere and Pablo Heras-Casado will conduct Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre.
It’s very easy to get 98% capacity when you sell all remaining seats (and there is no short of them) in 20Eur.
They get what they deserve?
Over many years and countless evenings in the Staatsoper I can only say that “mediocrity” gets its true definition on a Repertoireabend here.
What? One a week and Christmas and New Year off?
Vienna returns to what it has always been: a tourist sight on Tripadvisor.
Tourists. Enjoying themselves.
The horror. The horror.
If they enjoyed themselves quietly it would be pure bliss.
Unfortunately they never did. Nowadays you even get toddlers running around. It is the heart of true darkness.
Yes, they’re just ‘deplorable’ after all.
Nearly 99% full? I guess those that say this is “discredited” don’t have a lot of “credit”.
Yes, 11 new productions and 50 operas from the repertoire. Oh, the horror. Truly “discredited”. How dare they call themselves an opera house.
Would comments be made in the negative if all those operas were filling wide-ranging diversity quotas?
The Vienna State Opera web site shows 6 Premiers in the new season and 9 revivals. Where did this “50” come from?
From the title and the text of this article? Or how do you interpret “recycle 50 operas” and “11 new shows”. There might be a few ballets among them, though. If the numbers are wrong, I’m sorry. But I did not make them up…
I counted only 6 opera premieres and a mere 39 repertoire pieces to be played in the next season.
Premières
Just about selling out the house every night and this is “discredited”? The Met can’t sell tickets and you’re not happy with that either.
This site is absolutely bipolar.
The Met is more than twice the size.
Perhaps you would prefer the Metropolitan Opera’s season, with six forgettable contemporary works, some politically charged, out of a total of only 18. In Vienna, I count 45 works in a ten month season, of which six are new productions and 9 are revivals after an absence of more than a season. In the repertory are works such as Strauss’s Daphne, Rossini’s William Tell, Ligeti’s Grand Macabre, Lohengrin and Frau conducted by Thielemann, and more. It seems to me this is hardly routine.
Let’s see what ROH offer next season before we cast the first stone. Looking through the programme I’d be happy to be so discredited.
What’s the difference between the “revival” and a “repertoire” piece? Seems both are from a previous season. Thanks in advance for any clarification.
A “repertoire” piece is a production that was already played last year (and probably years before that). The musicians are expected to know the piece and therefore there are no orchestral rehearsals. For this reason, people say that the 3rd show of a run of a “repertoire” production is typically the best.
A “revival” (Wiederaufnahme) is a production that wasn’t played the year before – basically it was discontinued at some point and is now being “revived”. Here, you need orchestral rehearsals. Typically the cast will also be quite good, while with “repertoire” productions it can vary between great and mediocre.
The days when you had the likes of Baltsa, gruberova, Domingo, carreras, Pavarotti, Behrens, varady etc selling out the house in great barmstorming performances are long gone. Nowadays you hear a cipher on stage and a time beater in the pit! The house needs a new GM!
I’ve sold my remaining tickets and will forgo this tourist trap.