This week on Musica we talk to the rising directors turning the opera world on its head.
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00:00 MUSIC
00:02 Musica is proudly presented by Rolex.
00:09 They're ahead of their time -
00:14 visionary stage directors who want to entertain.
00:17 Just a beautiful voice really isn't enough.
00:20 It has to be very, very good theatre.
00:22 To hit a nerve.
00:27 You're sitting in a world that can take you by the hand.
00:31 And where music has direct access to the nerves.
00:34 And spread their message.
00:41 I don't do an opera if I don't see a version of it in the world that we live in.
00:48 Where do they get their ideas from?
00:52 Which techniques and tools do they use?
00:54 MUSIC
00:56 Visionary directors - how to reinvent opera.
01:01 MUSIC
01:05 Opera like in the movies.
01:10 There's a new generation of stage directors
01:16 who know how to add a modern twist to classical masterpieces,
01:19 such as the epic tale of Faust,
01:22 staged by Tobias Kratzer at Opera Bastille.
01:26 Faust is a grand opera, and I was very clear that a spectacle had to be set on fire.
01:32 For this big trip that Faust and Mephisto are taking through Paris,
01:36 there has to be a flood of images.
01:39 I think what Tobias has understood very well
01:48 is that we can give contemporary ideas of this Faust,
01:53 the theme of the subject of Faust, but with today's means.
01:57 Videos, all that which is extremely well done,
02:02 and which, for the audience, gives the impression that it's us today, this story.
02:07 The German Tobias Kratzer won prestigious prizes
02:16 and led productions at numerous international opera houses.
02:20 The secret of his success?
02:30 One ingredient - the same team - set and costume designer Rainer Sellmeyer
02:35 and video artist Manuel Braun.
02:43 It's getting more and more interesting with each time,
02:46 because we're always animating each other to develop new spaces,
02:50 but also new approaches to pieces.
02:53 For us, from the beginning, it wasn't clear at Mouizé Farrand
03:02 whether he was aiming for a political read,
03:04 whether it would be a big religious discourse,
03:06 whether Rossini would be able to do all this with his music,
03:08 and nothing about the subject.
03:10 Then comes the moment of truth, when you decide on a path,
03:14 but you have to be very, very consistent.
03:17 For Rossini's opera about Mouizé's exodus from Egypt,
03:27 they drew a parallel with the refugee crisis.
03:31 (Opera music)
03:34 We have the situation of a refugee camp.
03:48 On the one hand, it's like ruins or sand or abandoned houses,
03:53 and on the other hand, for the Western civilization,
03:58 this big office of a Western NGO.
04:02 Like in other of Kratzer's productions,
04:10 a video projection plays an important role.
04:13 It shows the exodus, but was filmed in Marseille.
04:17 For me, it was the first time that we worked with underwater cameramen.
04:21 We had two divers who filmed underwater,
04:23 and it was a very complex production.
04:25 It was also a great adventure.
04:28 And we have there, so to speak,
04:30 when the sea, the split sea, closes again,
04:33 and the Egyptians drown,
04:35 he tried to capture that.
04:43 During the rehearsal, the film sequence has to be adjusted
04:46 to the conductor's pace.
04:48 (Opera music)
05:03 (Opera music)
05:06 I think Therese is fabulous.
05:29 He is like the whisperer of big, crazy pieces
05:32 that I would never know how to direct.
05:34 He does this big, there's this style called grand opera,
05:38 which is like these crazy five-act French things,
05:41 and nobody can crack those like Therese.
05:44 Lydia Steyer, another talented and award-winning stage director.
05:51 She's progressive, a feminist, not afraid of provoking,
05:55 and one of the few female stage directors in Europe.
05:58 Being a woman in this business,
06:00 you have to behave differently than men,
06:03 and you have to be aware of the difference
06:06 in the perception of certain reactions based on your gender.
06:10 For instance, a man that has a temper tantrum
06:13 and runs out of the room is a perfectionist.
06:16 A woman that does that is hysterical.
06:19 Exact same behavior, exact same situation,
06:21 and so I've learned over time that you have to control for that.
06:27 First, the American wanted to become a singer,
06:30 but quickly she changed plans.
06:32 She's famous for her visually intense staging.
06:35 You're looking at these enormous forces.
06:39 I mean, when you see the Frau in Schatten,
06:42 it is literally 350 people working in concert,
06:46 like in perfect coordination to create this thing
06:49 that is designed to move you on the inside.
06:52 # Schatten-like music
06:55 All right, also, Vivian,
07:01 I'd love you to run and stand on the bed when you see her.
07:04 Die Frau on a Schatten,
07:16 a challenging work full of symbols
07:18 influenced by Freud's interpretation of dreams.
07:22 All of my designers know that there have to be rolling elements,
07:26 there have to be, like, I love a staircase,
07:29 that there have to be the ability of quicker changes and movement.
07:35 The transitions and the movement of elements
07:41 is the absolute key to this entire set and to the storytelling,
07:45 and in that case, it's not really possible
07:47 to make all the shapes that need to happen on stage
07:50 without being able to play with them with your hands.
07:53 There's no such thing as a traditional staging.
08:01 Like, you have to reflect the time,
08:04 the political pressures of a moment.
08:07 Movie musicals and Broadway, that's what Steyr grew up with,
08:15 modern inspirations that shape her opera productions.
08:18 You know, the idea is to sort of, like, seduce an audience,
08:21 like, to get them entertained and excited about a visual language
08:24 and then twist the knife a little bit and say,
08:27 "Don't you see yourselves in this?"
08:29 Like, this is about us.
08:30 Every piece that I ever direct has to be about us.
08:33 ORCHESTRA PLAYS
08:36 Lydia's, I mean, I feel as if she has such a dramatic focus
08:59 on performance and storytelling.
09:01 You feel really like you see very clearly
09:04 what the kind of narrative of the opera is,
09:07 but you feel like it's brought into sharp focus by the performers.
09:12 Here's another award-winning stage director,
09:16 the Swiss-Australian Simon Stone.
09:18 Before moving to Europe,
09:24 he was described as the enfant terrible of Australian theatre.
09:28 As a director, he wants his cast to improvise
09:31 and participate in the creative process.
09:34 If you want to achieve something new,
09:37 you have to be working in a way that is unknown to you.
09:41 Like, we don't challenge ourselves enough as artists, I think,
09:44 to really kind of put ourselves into situations
09:47 where we're not specialists.
09:49 I'm constantly moving between art forms
09:51 and I'm constantly having to kind of catch up.
09:57 What are they?
09:58 Moving between art forms by directing plays, operas and even films.
10:03 Mr Brown is an archaeologist.
10:07 She's got...
10:09 Mrs Pretty, I think you'd better come and see.
10:23 Many of his opera stagings are also famous for being cinematographic.
10:28 A realistic and intimate approach that matches especially well
10:32 with the contemporary production Innocence,
10:35 composed by Kaya Sarayaro, an opera featuring a school massacre.
10:39 You listen to the music and you compose pictures,
10:50 thinking, "What film would I make to that score?"
10:56 You need to celebrate the piece of music for what it is.
11:01 And if you don't like the music, you shouldn't be making the opera.
11:19 The only way operas keep getting put on
11:22 is by proving that they have a relevance to the world that we live in.
11:26 So that's, I think, the simplest way of making sure
11:29 that audiences feel like opera is indispensable as an art form.
11:34 Modern subjects, classics that still matter today and impactful staging -
11:44 this is what opera should be made of in the 21st century.
11:48 # I'll make you... #
11:52 # I'll make you... #
11:55 Musica was proudly presented by Rolex.