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Regietheater (German for director's theater or producer's theater) is a term that refers to the modern (mainly post-World War II) practice of allowing a director (or producer) freedom in devising the way a given opera (or play) is staged so that the creator's original, specific intentions or stage directions (where supplied) can be changed, together with major elements of geographical location, chronological situation, casting and plot. Typically such changes may be made to point a particular political point or modern parallels which may be remote from traditional interpretations.

Symptoms of Regietheater may include:

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• The story is relocated from the original location to a more modern period, (including setting in a totalitarian regime)
• Modifications to the story from the original script
• Interpretative elements stressing the role of race/gender/class-based oppression are stressed
• Abstraction in the set design
• An emphasis on sexuality
• Costumes frequently mix eras and locales, as in Opera Theatre of Saint Louis's 2010 production of Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" and 2011 "Don Giovanni," with some characters in 18th century attire and others in mid-20th century garb.

  History and Examples

It can be argued that Regietheater began with the work of Wieland Wagner (1917–1966), who in the years after WWII responded to the profound problematisation of his grandfather, Richard Wagner's, work that resulted from its earlier appropriation by the Nazis by designing and producing minimalist and heavily symbolic stagings of Wagner operas in Bayreuth and elsewhere. Guided by the theories of Adolphe Appia, Wieland Wagner's productions allegedly sought to emphasise the epic and universal aspects of the Wagner dramas, and were justified as being attempts to explore the texts from the viewpoint of (often Jungian) depth psychology. In practice this would mean, for example, that the opening act of Die Walküre (the second work of the Ring cycle), specifically described as set in Hunding's forest hut, was presented on a stage shaped as a large, sloping disc: no hut was either seen or implied, and the composer's many detailed instructions relating to the actions of Wehwalt, Sieglinde and Hunding within the hut were disregarded because it was said that the details of the scoring meant that they were already illustrated musically.

In 1976 the Patrice Chéreau production of the centenary Bayreuth Ring that sought to make manifest an anti-capitalist and Marxian sub-text recognized to be present in the work given the time of its original creation: following this conception, Wagner's mischievous Rhinemaiden became three ragged whores plying their trade near a hydro-electric dam, the gods are a late-19th century industrialist family, and Siegfried used an industrial steam-hammer to forge his sword.

The rise of deconstructionism gave a new lease of life to Regietheater in Europe and elsewhere. Prominent American deconstructionists include Peter Sellars and David Alden. Other directors often associated with Regietheater include Walter Felsenstein^{[citation needed]}, Christopher Alden, Calixto Bieito, Harry Kupfer, David Pountney, and Claus Guth, who have applied such principles to a wide range of operas from the classical and romantic periods.

  Controversy

Supporters of Regietheater will insist that works from earlier centuries not only permit but even demand to be re-invented in ways that not only fit the contemporary Zeitgeist but even strive to connect them with situations and locations of which the original composers and librettists could not have conceived, thus setting the story into a context the contemporary audience can relate to.

The appointment of "celebrity" directors (often from film or other theater branches) in recent years who never learnt the specific requirements of opera direction (some of which even flaunting their inability to read music) and hide their ineptitude to psychologically direct singers behind unreflected Regietheater clichés (often involving gratuitous shock elements) has led to a general misapprehension of the Regietheater term by both theaters and critics.

It is therefore no surprise that opponents will accuse such producers of shallowness, crudity, sensationalism, lack of real creativity, insensitivity to the richness of the original setting, neglect of the role played by the music, and of pandering to the appetites of ephemeral journalism. More and more, however, critics distinguish between "proper" application of Regietheater principles, and the gratuitous use of misunderstood Regietheater stereotypes.^[1]

  Notes