De waarheid omtrent Robert Lepage

Zelden heb ik een regisseur zo de mantel uitgeveegd geweten als Robert Lepage in The New York Observer. Volledig terecht overigens. Enkele fragmenten :

“The result of all of this spending and innovation, though, was a Rheingold dull and shockingly out of touch with Wagner's intricately drawn characters and plot. The singers seemed genuinely undirected, lost in front of the set's imposing mass. The production team working down to the wire to get the technical aspects right (the climactic effect malfunctioned on opening night), but it appeared that relatively little attention was given to the acting. There were no relationships; there was no drama. No one, not even the powerful bass-baritone Eric Owens as Alberich, made much of an impact.”

“It was only when the massive set was moving that you had a sense that the director was engaged, that you got a whiff of the cycle's dramatic stakes and the epic scope that frames its intimate narratives. But in neither Rheingold nor Nightingale were you much aware of the human emotions at the heart of both pieces; in both, as much as possible, Mr. Lepage avoided dealing with humans at all.”

“The director consistently creates productions in which it is nearly impossible for an actor to form a character. Indeed, Rheingold, with a plot full of effects and gimmicks, should have been the opera in the Ring cycle that most rewarded the limitations of Mr. Lepage's vision; the rest of the Ring contains an awful lot of hours of people essentially standing around and talking to one another. This can be beautiful, and moving, and fascinating, but not if it's shaped by a director uninterested in people.”

“He has shown himself adept at the stunning, characterless, largely plotless spectacles of the contemporary circus and rock show, giving those tired genres a bit of high-culture sheen. But when it comes to great works of art, which are never really about special effects and which demand interpreters alert to their subtleties and possibilities, his tricks fall flat.”

“Underlying the Met's choice of Mr. Lepage and the plans for his Ring cycle is a fundamental misunderstanding of Wagner's operas. These works are not about the sets, be they "traditional" or "modern"; not about spectacle; and not about instilling some sense of childlike wonder or "enchantment." As directors from Wieland Wagner to Patrice Chéreau to Francesca Zambello have shown, the Ring is a work of profound intellectual and aesthetic rigor, certainly (if done well) a deeply entertaining experience but just as certainly not a kids' show. These are operas for grown-ups; if he wants his cycle to rebound after Rheingold, Mr. Lepage will have to prove that, for once, he's more than a child.”

Hallo, Peter Gelb ?