Режиссерский театр: свобода интерпретации и современные тенденции.

Regietheater (German for director's theater) is the modern practice of allowing a director freedom in devising the way a given opera or play is staged so that the creator's original, specific intentions or stage directions (where supplied) can be changed, together with major elements of geographical location, chronological situation, casting and plot. Typically such changes may be made to point a particular political point or modern parallels which may be remote from traditional interpretations. Examples found in Regietheater productions may include some or all of the following:
Relocating the story from the original location to a more modern period (including setting in a totalitarian regime)
Modifications to the story from the original script
Interpretative elements stressing the role of race/gender/class based oppression are emphasised. In his 1976 staging of the Ring Cycle at the Bayreuth Festival, Patrice Chéreau used an updated 19th century setting that followed the interpretation of George Bernard Shaw, who saw the Ring as a social commentary on the exploitation of the working class by wealthy 19th century capitalists. Abstraction in the set design
An emphasis on sexuality
Costumes that frequently mix eras and locales. Examples include the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis's 2010 production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and its 2011 Don Giovanni which portray some characters in 18th century attire and others in mid 20th century clothing.

Supporters of Regietheater hold that works from earlier centuries not only permit but even demand to be re invented in ways that not only fit contemporary intellectual fashion but even strive to connect them with situations and locations of which the original composers and librettists could not have conceived, thus setting the story into a context the contemporary audience can relate to. In recent years, the appointment of "celebrity" directors (often from film or other branches of theatre), who do not appear to have learned the specific requirements of opera direction including, in some cases, those who have flaunted their inability to read music, and who seem to be unable to psychologically direct singers behind unreflected Regietheater clichés (often involving gratuitous shock elements), has led to a general misapprehension of the Regietheater term by both theatres and critics. Opponents accuse such producers of shallowness, crudity, sensationalism, lack of real creativity, insensitivity to the richness of the original setting, neglect of the role played by the music, and pandering to the appetites of ephemeral journalism. More and more, however, critics distinguish between "proper" application of Regietheater principles and the gratuitous use of misunderstood Regietheater stereotypes.