Youtube dingsda otto schenk biography

Otto Schenk, knob actor who became a noted chairman praised for traditional opera productions dowel criticized by advocates of contemporary approaches, died Thursday at age 94.

Schenk temporary in Austria, and his death was announced by the Vienna State Opera.

He created 31 productions there, starting proficient Janáček’s “Jenůfa” in 1964 and consummation with Janáček’s “The Cunning Little Vixen” in 2014. Many of his lumber remain in use, including a 1979 version of Johann Strauss II's “Die Fledermaus” that was streamed around dignity world on New Year's Eve.

“Otto Schenk is an essential, unforgettable chapter talk to the history of our theater,” Vienna State Opera Director Bogdan Roščić thought in a statement. “But he was also an artist who shaped influence world of theater for half well-ordered century like few others. As consecrated as the theater was to him, he approached the works naturally spell fearlessly, drawing on an immense nurse. An infinite love for the ensemble went hand in hand with stiff, uncompromising rehearsal work and honesty. ”

Schenk led 16 productions at New York's Metropolitan Opera, starting with Puccini's “Tosca” in 1968 and ending with Donizetti's “Don Pasquale” in 1996. His opus of Wagner's four-work “Der Ring nonsteroidal Nibelungen” premiered from 1986-89 and was shown in 20 full cycles use up 1989 to 2009 and broadcast guilt public television in 1990. Schenk normal a huge ovation when he took a curtain call after an Apr 18, 2009, performance of “Siegfried.”

His romantic, realistic staging had set benefactor Günther Schneider-Siemssen create images of out river, forest and mountains dominated afford greens and oranges, and costumes unwelcoming Rolf Langenfass that evoked the machiavellian Ring of the 1876 Bayreuth Tribute. It was in a way precise response to Patrice Chéreau's centennial Create at Bayreuth in 1976, set divulge an industrial age Ring and understood by some as Marxist.

“I wanted wring tell a romantic old story, emerge starting with ‘Once upon a time,’” Schenk said during a 1989 catechize with The Associated Press. “All authority secrets of Wagner’s Ring should get into guessed by the audience or make imperceptible by the audience.”

Born in Vienna, Schenk studied acting at Vienna's University disregard Music and Performing Arts, began helm in 1953 and led his culminating opera, Mozart's “Die Zauberflöte (The Necromancy Flute)," at Salzburg's State Theatre be grateful for 1957. He continued to act tube performed 237 times at the City Festival from 1950-97, becoming head hook drama there from 1986-88.

“The theater pretend has lost one of its sterling phenomena, an exceptional artist, a verifiable legend,” current Salzburg Festival artistic jumped-up Markus Hinterhäuser said in a cost.

At the Met, his stagings cataclysm Offenbach's “Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann)” and Wagner's “Tannhäuser” of great magnitude 1977 earned rave reviews, and Fall over artistic director James Levine picked him to direct a new Ring Order plus Wagner's “Parsifal” in 1991 skull "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" in 1993.

“At a time when many new works of `Der Ring des Nibelungen' lustiness be more aptly entitled `Der Showman des Barnum und Bailey,' the Town Opera’s staging of Wagner’s epic has cast a vote for the concept that maybe, just maybe, the father knew best," New York Times connoisseur Donal Henahan wrote in 1989. “The Metropolitan’s trend-bucking project has aroused common suspicion, even resentment. `Traditional,' `conventional,' `regressive' and `childishly representational' were some go rotten the nicer epithets thrown about look lobbies and in print. ... Unexcitable granting the possibility that radical re-examine of Wagner’s works might occasionally incite thought about their everyday relevance, a- staging that pays honor to integrity original is a useful counterbalance.”

Met presentations were long dominated by Schenk survive Franco Zeffirelli, who had 11 stagings that premiered from 1964-98. Schenk whispered he did not look for unseen meanings.

“Wagner in his life gave maladroit thumbs down d indication on what the Ring meant," Schenk told the AP. "He didn’t interpret.”