Regie, or not Regie: The 2025 Revival

     or Why I Decided Someone Else Might Care.

I stopped blogging a few years back when I started working full time again (go figure!).I had less time
to watch opera and less time to ponder the points of less traditional opera productions. The original inspiration for this blog was all the annoying negative posts on YouTube about any production that varied from the "norm". 

I am fascinated by rethinking operas from a staging standpoint, and I love how (most) rethought productions focus not only on the singing (that's why we're here, after all) but also on the acting, the drama, the meaning. I feel this way especially when seeing an opera that's been done so many times before. I feel this way when we've seen too many hoop skirts, sausage curls, chandeliers, horns & breastplates, and bathrobes (the Nabucco productions!) 

For a few years I watched "controversies" on various Facebook groups, other blogs, and yes, still on YouTube comments. Every time I thought I'd restart the blog, I thought, "I don't really care what everyone else thinks. Why should they care what I think?" I also thought about the fact that blogs are kind of passe here in the 2020s. But my urge to share finally won out. So here we are. 

The name of this blog is a (weak) pun. The question really is are we watching a thoughtful restaging, a well-directed rethink, or just someone working out their own difficult childhood (or all three and more)? Just because Rigoletto is set in Las Vegas or Aida in Kiev or Boheme on the moon or Cosi in the 1960s doesn't necessarily make the drama less dramatic, the singing less wonderful (or awful), or the plot less moving. 

So, here we are. Welcome back. Please enjoy, and feel free to comment. I love the interaction!

 Not Your Father's Traviata

Although My Dad would have liked it.

I just saw a gripping La Traviata on YouTube. The title for the post included "Poor Verdi" so you know I just had to see/hear it!!

It's not at ALL traditional—a little grimy, but very moving, I thought. There was a total of four Violettas on stage (five if you count Germont’s daughter, who was kind of another Violetta). Two singing, one dancing, and one as a child. Was Giorgio Germont really Violetta's dad or was it just symbolism of how badly well-heeled men treated lesser-born women?

It’s also slightly out of score order. It should not be one’s first exposure to the opera! But, that said, I highly recommend it to anyone who is open to new interpretations of well-known classics.