Jan Templiner writes of opera directors:

>However, I wonder whether it wouldn't be more efficient to have an
>apprentice simply do what is in the score. It'd save the house houses
>a lot of money (and cost a few jobs, granted) and probably make the
>audience happier. At least I would be happier.

A curiously bleak prospect. I don't suppose you'd be happy if the idea
of "apprentice" work were extended to the singers and musicians, so why
should the production side be down-graded, short-changed and condemned
to mediocrity?

"Prima la musica, doppo le parole" ....  These sort of sentiments are
as old as opera itself, and they come from people who are happy to think
of opera as some sort of musical cake, with words, staging and theatricality
as optional icing.  Whether "what's in the score" extends to "what's in
the libretto" remains as open a question as ever.

Times change.  We cannot go back to the pre-W.S.Gilbert days when the
"stage manager" had certain vague duties to do with directing the opera
on top of his primary function of lighting the candles and making sure
they weren't going to catch the ladies' crinolines, and the singers all
brought their own costumes (now only Pavarotti does that, for obvious
practical reasons!)

In the complex world of the modern opera house, ultimately somebody has
to in charge.  If it's not the stage director, it will be the conductor
- or more likely, the administrator, who is always in a position to
overrule anything artistic whatsoever.

Presumably the excellent Marek Janowski would prefer to call the shots
himself - old school maestros are not exactly famed for their ability
to play second fiddle.  It's instructive to compare his attitude with
the refreshing, genuinely collaborative stance of, say, Simon Rattle.

>Furthermore I find it curious that in the days of "period performance
>practice" the clearly written will of the composer as to staging
>matters less than ever. This is nothing but an observation and no
>offense implied.

We've had this confusion surface before.  In musical terms, we live
in a more purist age than ever before.  It's impossible to imagine
the barbaric cuts inflicted on Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi even in
the 1960's (c.f.  Callas's studio recordings) being perpetrated today.
Being true to the letter as well as the spirit of the written notes has
become something of an end in itself.

As for staging, the "clearly written will" of the composer cannot
extend beyond the grave and the notes to the stage directions (which in
any case are the legal copyright of the librettist) as it is physically
and psychologically impossible to ape the stage manners of a bygone age
without producing dead pastiche - back to the Aspic Museum again.  Singers
are taught (if anything at all) modern acting styles, and audiences used
to film, TV and modern theatre will not accept old fustian, creaky sets
and scratch stagings.

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"THE ZARZUELA COMPANION" (Scarecrow Press)