The Role of the Director in Opera
Once opera was the preserve of the singers, exhibiting their art in defiance of dramatic truth.
All that has changed. Opera has been overtaken by a new breed of directors who, it's often claimed, emphasise drama at the expense of the music.
Peter Conrad considers the reasons for this theatrical assault on the opera house with Peter Brook , Christoph von Dohnanyi, Sir Peter Hall
Michael Hampe , Robert Lloyd Jean-Pierre Ponnelle , David Pountney , John Schlesinger and Peter Stein
Producer BRIAN BARFIELD (R)