The sheer size of The MET as an auditorium, and the size of the stage area are extremely problematic in terms of staging. It is in no way an intimate house. To reach the audience in the Family Circle (5th Balcony) and to fill the stage, directors often have to fill the stage with a clutter of people and things. When I saw Muhly's 'Two Boys' there some years back, my impression was that the story got totally lost in an overly busy stage. Ditto Muhly's 'Marnie'. I'm amazed that The MET even does smaller 18th Century works, where the vastness of the house definitely works against size and content.
Was just watching the video of 'Cosi Fan Tutte' as staged by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker at the Paris Opera (Palais Garnier which has an even vaster stage!) where excellent dancers seem to be present for no other reason than to fill space.
You surprise me when you say the stage of Palais Garnier is even vaster than the Met. Palais Garnier is always used for the more intimate opera's (even baroque) which would go lost on the stage of opera Bastille.
I often used to read comments about the depth of the Palais Garnier stage, although my one "live" experience of it was relatively flat...A Wieland Wagner staging of 'Tristan und Isolde' in 1967! If you watch the DVD of De Keersmaeker's staging of 'Cosi Fan Tutte' you get some inkling of just how large the stage space is.
The sheer size of The MET as an auditorium, and the size of the stage area are extremely problematic in terms of staging. It is in no way an intimate house. To reach the audience in the Family Circle (5th Balcony) and to fill the stage, directors often have to fill the stage with a clutter of people and things. When I saw Muhly's 'Two Boys' there some years back, my impression was that the story got totally lost in an overly busy stage. Ditto Muhly's 'Marnie'. I'm amazed that The MET even does smaller 18th Century works, where the vastness of the house definitely works against size and content.
Was just watching the video of 'Cosi Fan Tutte' as staged by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker at the Paris Opera (Palais Garnier which has an even vaster stage!) where excellent dancers seem to be present for no other reason than to fill space.
You surprise me when you say the stage of Palais Garnier is even vaster than the Met. Palais Garnier is always used for the more intimate opera's (even baroque) which would go lost on the stage of opera Bastille.
I often used to read comments about the depth of the Palais Garnier stage, although my one "live" experience of it was relatively flat...A Wieland Wagner staging of 'Tristan und Isolde' in 1967! If you watch the DVD of De Keersmaeker's staging of 'Cosi Fan Tutte' you get some inkling of just how large the stage space is.