The world of opera - its faithful and its critics - has been shaken for decades by an intense debate about the staging of lyrical staging: is it legitimate to describe certain productions as "infidels" in relation to the intentions of the opera? Creator? What, on the contrary, makes it possible to speak of "fidelity"? The purpose of this book is to try to determine in relation to which specific aspects of the universe of the creator and the work, these judgments were constructed.
The author bases his argument on some two hundred and thirty European, American and Canadian productions, and in particular those of operas by Berg, Bizet, Debussy, Haendel, Janá? Ek, Mozart, Offenbach, Richard Strauss and Wagner. In the latter, the multiplicity of political, social and ideological stakes makes it the touchstone of any lyrical staging. Patrice Chéreau's work is also at the heart of this investigation, but the author constantly confronts the issues with the productions of the Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Glimmerglass Opera Festival of Cooperstown (USA) and the Festivals of Aix-en-Provence. -Provence and Bayreuth.