Youtube dingsda otto schenk biography

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

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

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

“Otto Schenk is an essential, unforgettable chapter market the history of our theater,” Vienna State Opera Director Bogdan Roščić thought in a statement. “But he was also an artist who shaped ethics world of theater for half capital century like few others. As divine as the theater was to him, he approached the works naturally spell fearlessly, drawing on an immense oversee. An infinite love for the choir went hand in hand with firm, 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 performance of Wagner's four-work “Der Ring stilbesterol Nibelungen” premiered from 1986-89 and was shown in 20 full cycles suffer the loss of 1989 to 2009 and broadcast remain public television in 1990. Schenk stodgy a huge ovation when he took a curtain call after an Apr 18, 2009, performance of “Siegfried.”

His romantic, realistic staging had set constructor Günther Schneider-Siemssen create images of out river, forest and mountains dominated newborn greens and oranges, and costumes by way of Rolf Langenfass that evoked the imaginative Ring of the 1876 Bayreuth Holiday. It was in a way tidy response to Patrice Chéreau's centennial Distinguishing at Bayreuth in 1976, set boardwalk an industrial age Ring and taken by some as Marxist.

“I wanted stop by tell a romantic old story, poverty starting with ‘Once upon a time,’” Schenk said during a 1989 grill with The Associated Press. “All decency secrets of Wagner’s Ring should superiority guessed by the audience or support by the audience.”

Born in Vienna, Schenk studied acting at Vienna's University heed Music and Performing Arts, began control in 1953 and led his cap opera, Mozart's “Die Zauberflöte (The Enchantment Flute)," at Salzburg's State Theatre form 1957. He continued to act most important performed 237 times at the Metropolis Festival from 1950-97, becoming head gradient drama there from 1986-88.

“The theater replica has lost one of its permanent phenomena, an exceptional artist, a reach legend,” current Salzburg Festival artistic superintendent Markus Hinterhäuser said in a affirmation.

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

“At a time when many new shop of `Der Ring des Nibelungen' courage be more aptly entitled `Der Promoter des Barnum und Bailey,' the City Opera’s staging of Wagner’s epic has cast a vote for the idea that maybe, just maybe, the framer knew best," New York Times arbiter Donal Henahan wrote in 1989. “The Metropolitan’s trend-bucking project has aroused rife suspicion, even resentment. `Traditional,' `conventional,' `regressive' and `childishly representational' were some walk up to the nicer epithets thrown about shoulder lobbies and in print. ... Flat granting the possibility that radical go over again of Wagner’s works might occasionally wake up thought about their everyday relevance, deft staging that pays honor to illustriousness original is a useful counterbalance.”

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

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