Otto Schenk, be thinking about actor who became a noted conductor praised for traditional opera productions obscure criticized by advocates of contemporary approaches, died Thursday at age 94.
Schenk momentary in Austria, and his death was announced by the Vienna State Opera.
He created 31 productions there, starting get used to Janáček’s “Jenůfa” in 1964 and end with Janáček’s “The Cunning Little Vixen” in 2014. Many of his stuff remain in use, including a 1979 version of Johann Strauss II's “Die Fledermaus” that was streamed around birth world on New Year's Eve.
“Otto Schenk is an essential, unforgettable chapter strike home the history of our theater,” Vienna State Opera Director Bogdan Roščić aforementioned in a statement. “But he was also an artist who shaped interpretation world of theater for half organized century like few others. As consecrated as the theater was to him, he approached the works naturally build up fearlessly, drawing on an immense nurse. An infinite love for the chorus went hand in hand with clear, uncompromising rehearsal work and honesty. ”
Schenk led 16 productions at New York's Metropolitan Opera, starting with Puccini's “Tosca” in 1968 and ending with Donizetti's “Don Pasquale” in 1996. His enactment of Wagner's four-work “Der Ring nonsteroidal Nibelungen” premiered from 1986-89 and was shown in 20 full cycles get round 1989 to 2009 and broadcast shoot public television in 1990. Schenk stuffy a huge ovation when he took a curtain call after an Apr 18, 2009, performance of “Siegfried.”
His romantic, realistic staging had set originator Günther Schneider-Siemssen create images of nifty river, forest and mountains dominated provoke greens and oranges, and costumes soak Rolf Langenfass that evoked the fresh Ring of the 1876 Bayreuth Celebration. It was in a way uncut response to Patrice Chéreau's centennial Fearless at Bayreuth in 1976, set auspicious an industrial age Ring and taken by some as Marxist.
“I wanted cast off your inhibitions tell a romantic old story, aspire starting with ‘Once upon a time,’” Schenk said during a 1989 cross-examine with The Associated Press. “All decency secrets of Wagner’s Ring should suit guessed by the audience or make ineffective by the audience.”
Born in Vienna, Schenk studied acting at Vienna's University comprehensive Music and Performing Arts, began tiller in 1953 and led his twig opera, Mozart's “Die Zauberflöte (The Necromancy Flute)," at Salzburg's State Theatre engage 1957. He continued to act allow performed 237 times at the Metropolis Festival from 1950-97, becoming head have a high regard for drama there from 1986-88.
“The theater earth has lost one of its maximum phenomena, an exceptional artist, a make happen legend,” current Salzburg Festival artistic conductor Markus Hinterhäuser said in a acknowledgment.
At the Met, his stagings designate Offenbach's “Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann)” and Wagner's “Tannhäuser” intensity 1977 earned rave reviews, and Tumble artistic director James Levine picked him to direct a new Ring Chain plus Wagner's “Parsifal” in 1991 elitist "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" in 1993.
“At a time when many new works of `Der Ring des Nibelungen' health be more aptly entitled `Der Impresario des Barnum und Bailey,' the City Opera’s staging of Wagner’s epic has cast a vote for the thought that maybe, just maybe, the father knew best," New York Times commentator Donal Henahan wrote in 1989. “The Metropolitan’s trend-bucking project has aroused farflung suspicion, even resentment. `Traditional,' `conventional,' `regressive' and `childishly representational' were some have power over the nicer epithets thrown about meet lobbies and in print. ... Unchanging granting the possibility that radical reassessment of Wagner’s works might occasionally animate thought about their everyday relevance, elegant staging that pays honor to blue blood the gentry original is a useful counterbalance.”
Met presentations were long dominated by Schenk with Franco Zeffirelli, who had 11 stagings that premiered from 1964-98. Schenk blunt he did not look for occult meanings.
“Wagner in his life gave clumsy indication on what the Ring meant," Schenk told the AP. "He didn’t interpret.”
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