And in Addition to Herheim...More Met Rumors

I love the interwebz! Intermezzo reported that Peter Gelb, in an interview for the Austrian Kurier,  said that Calixto Bieto will be directing at the Met in the near future. Likely Impossibilities picked that item up, and opined:

Why didn't he give this interview to the Times's Anthony Tommasini, who is also in Salzburg; or the New Yorker's Alex Ross, who is as well? This is quite rude to loyal Met audience members who care about these things. (While some of them will be hostile to this development, many would welcome it, and it seems bad form to talk about it behind New York's back.)

Hear, hear!! Save the good stuff for us, PG! So meanwhile, Parterre box passed the notice along, and among her reader comments were the following:

oedipe says:

“Calixto Bieto und Robert Lepage werden auch wieder an der MET inszenieren.” 

Separately or together? It may make a difference.

Ilka Saro says:

Bieito will be directing a production of Lakme, with Natalie Dessay as Nilakantha, set in a Nevada bordello. Lepage will add projections and a bunch of people walking on the ceiling.

and I says: I love an opera lover with an overdeveloped sense of whimsy!

What Did Entführung Ever Do To You?

Reri Grist as Blonde - 1980

My readers know I am a fan of reworking the classics. Many new angles and insights are revealed when we rethink tradition.  Sometimes these Regie-rethinkings are crap; sometimes they tell us something vaguely interesting, and sometimes they can be real eye-openers.  No opera is immune to a regie approach, but some get much more attention than others.

Lately, I've been pondering why Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serail gets the regie treatment so often. More importantly, why do directors feel free to add and/or delete spoken text willy nilly?