Regietheater (German for director's theater or producer's theater) is a term that refers to the modern (mainly post-World War II) practice of allowing a director (or producer) freedom in devising the way a given opera (or play) is staged so that the composer's original, specific stage directions (where supplied) can be changed, together with major elements of geographical location, chronological situation, casting and plot.
Historically, it can be argued that Regietheater began with the work of Wieland Wagner (1917–1966), who in the years after WWII responded to the profound problematisation of his grandfather, Richard Wagner's, work that resulted from its earlier appropriation by the Nazis by designing and producing minimalist and heavily symbolic stagings of Wagner operas in Bayreuth and elsewhere. Guided by the theories of Adolphe Appia, Wieland Wagner's productions allegedly sought to emphasise the epic and universal aspects of the Wagner dramas, and were justified as being attempts to explore the texts from the viewpoint of (often Jungian) depth psychology. In practice this would mean, for example, that the opening act of Die Walküre (the second work of the Ring cycle), specifically described as set in Hunding's forest hut, was presented on a stage shaped as a large, sloping disc: no hut was either seen or implied, and the composer's many detailed instructions relating to the actions of Wehwalt, Sieglinde and Hunding within the hut were disregarded because it was said that the details of the scoring meant that they were already illustrated musically.
More recent was the 1976 Patrice Chéreau production of the centenary Bayreuth Ring that sought to make manifest an anti-capitalist and Marxian sub-text recognized to be present in the work given the time of its original creation: following this conception, Wagner's mischievous Rhinemaiden became three ragged whores plying their trade near a hydro-electric dam, the gods are a late-19th century industrialist family, and Siegfried used an industrial steam-hammer to forge his sword.
Supporters of 'Regietheater' will insist that works from earlier centuries not only permit but even demand to be radically re-invented in ways that not only fit the contemporary Zeitgeist 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. Opponents, however, will 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, of pandering to the appetites of ephemeral journalism.
The rise of deconstructionism gave a new lease of life to Regietheater in Europe and elsewhere. Prominent American deconstructionists include Peter Sellars and David Alden.
The inflation in celebrity directors (often from film or other theater branches) in recent years who never learnt the specific requirements of opera direction (some of which even flaunting their inability to read music) and hide their ineptitude to psychologically direct singers behind misunderstood Regietheater clichés (often involving gratuitous shock elements) has led to a general misapprehension of the Regietheater term.
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