Otto Schenk, director known for traditional opera productions, dies at 94
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Otto Schenk, an actor who became a noted director praised for traditional opera productions and criticized by advocates of contemporary approaches, died Thursday at age 94. Schenk lived in Austria, and his death was announced by the Vienna State Opera.
He created 31 productions there, starting with Janáček’s “Jenůfa” in 1964 and ending with Janáček’s “The Cunning Little Vixen” in 2014. Many of his creations remain in use, including a 1979 version of Johann Strauss II's “Die Fledermaus” that was streamed around the world on New Year's Eve.
“Otto Schenk is an essential, unforgettable chapter in the history of our theater,” Vienna State Opera Director Bogdan Roščić said in a statement. “But he was also an artist who shaped the world of theater for half a century like few others. As sacred as the theater was to him, he approached the works naturally and fearlessly, drawing on an immense knowledge. An infinite love for the singers went hand in hand with hard, 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 staging of Wagner's four-work “Der Ring des Nibelungen” premiered from 1986-89 and was shown in 20 full cycles from 1989 to 2009 and broadcast on public television in 1990. Schenk received a huge ovation when he took a curtain call after an April 18, 2009, performance of “Siegfried.”.
His romantic, realistic staging had set designer Günther Schneider-Siemssen create images of a river, forest and mountains dominated by greens and oranges, and costumes by Rolf Langenfass that evoked the original Ring of the 1876 Bayreuth Festival. It was in a way a response to Patrice Chéreau's centennial Ring at Bayreuth in 1976, set in an industrial age Ring and interpreted by some as Marxist.
