Julia Klieter as Emma, via Salzburger Festspiele / Monika Rittershaus

My forthcoming chronicle for the magazine is a Salzburg chronicle. In it, I discuss the festival’s production of Fierrabras, an opera by Schubert. The stage director for this production was Peter Stein, the veteran German. Some people knocked it for its “literalism,” among other things. Here on the blog, I would like to make a few comments about literalism—realism?—in opera.

There was a moment in Fierrabras that made me think of Salzburg’s Don Carlo from the summer before. It so happens, Don Carlo was directed by this same Stein. There is a moment in Verdi’s opera when King Philip says, “Who are these men prostrate before me?” (They are the beleaguered and beseeching Flemish.) In Stein’s production, there was no one prostrate before Philip. There were some guys standing around.

If a character in an opera or play says, “Who are these men prostrate before me?” shouldn’t someone be prostrate before him? Or is that too square or literal? And if you are not going to follow the libretto—shouldn’t you change the libretto, to avoid confusion and silliness?

Okay, back to Fierrabras: Charlemagne says, “What? Emma here? On the barbarian’s arm?” In Stein’s production, Emma had actually been on the barbarian’s arm. The staging made perfect sense. I thought, “A minor operatic and directorial miracle.”

P.S. Salzburg had a production of Il trovatore this summer. In the Anvil Chorus, there was no anvil. I swear, it needs one. The chorus is just too . . . weird without it.

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