You know, there are awful productions and good productions.  Some of both
are "traditional" and "directorially driven."  I thought Chereau's Ring
laughably pretentious.  On the other hand, Sellars's Nozze de Figaro, set in
Trump Tower, brought home the power relationships between employer and
employee far more clearly than any powdered-wig version I've seen.
Sellars's version of Don Giovanni sent shivers down my spine (the good
kind).  I say this as someone inclined to want surface faithfulness to the
libretto.  I disliked Jonathan Miller's Gilbert and Sullivan as a Marx
Brothers musical, since it added nothing to the original, but I really liked
his Taming of the Shrew, set in traditional time and costume.  When
"director's opera" works, it reveals a dramatic truth usually buried under
years of performance tradition.  Sellars removed the "Dresden figurine"
patina from the Mozart to show us why the drama was so charged in the
composer's own time.  Miller ignored the Lusty Wench bluster of, say, the
Burton-Taylor-Zeffirelli pageant of bad acting, to illuminate something of
Shakespeare's own time.

One reason, I should think, that "director's opera" doesn't often work is
that directors actually see the opera as drama.  Very few singers, on the
other hand, have the acting chops to carry off a straight play.  I say this
as a singer with some stage experience.  It is the most difficult thing for
me to sing and move at the same time.  If I'm trying to remember my
blocking, I get shaky on the notes.  If I'm concentrating on singing, I
forget to move.  As an actor, I will not give Harvey Keitel (or even Chuck
Norris) a run for his money anytime soon.

Steve Schwartz