David Alden (director)
Encyclopedia
David Alden is a prolific theater and film director known for his post-modernist settings of opera. He is the twin brother of Christopher Alden
, also an opera director in the revisionist mold. The two brothers have covered much of the same repertoire in their long careers, but whereas Christopher's operatic settings place greater emphasis on his characters' emotional range, David's protagonists are more broadly caricatured and his productions far more politically charged. Another distinguishing feature between them is that David has been more active in Europe throughout his career, having enjoyed a particularly close creative partnership with Sir Peter Jonas
for more than two decades, at both the English National Opera
and the Bavarian State Opera
.
, and their mother was the ballerina Barbara Gaye, who danced in the original productions of On the Town and Annie Get Your Gun
with Ethel Merman
. As eight-year-olds, they listened at home to recordings of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, and as teenagers in the mid-'60s, they frequently bought standing room tickets at the Metropolitan Opera
. By age 13, both had decided they wanted to direct opera.
David studied at the University of Pennsylvania and like his brother, launched his directing career with Opera Omaha
in the 1970s. In 1976, he visited Europe where he immersed himself in the cultural stream of contemporary opera directors the likes of Giorgio Strehler
, Harry Kupfer
, Hans Neuenfels
and Ruth Berghaus
. Theirs was a generation of direct heirs to the Expressionist
movement and, in particular, to Bertolt Brecht
. For Alden, the exposure was a revelation that unlocked intense passions he had long wanted to express in musical theater. His first European production in the late ‘70s was a Rigoletto
for Scottish Opera
that, he says, was assailed by the critics because "in England, it was still very early to speak directly to the audience with the style I was attempting and place passion and schizophrenia on the stage."
In 1980, Alden was tapped by the Metropolitan Opera
to replace the late Herbert Graf
in its restaging of Wozzeck
as well as the revivals in 1985 and 1988. As John Rockwell noted in The New York Times
, "Alden's staging… (is) indebted to Expressionist films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
, full of stark silhouettes and lurching zombies."
— formerly artistic director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
— was named to succeed the Earl of Harewood
as general director of English National Opera
. Together with music director Mark Elder
and stage director David Pountney
, they became the ruling "Power House" triumvirate that re-invigorated the artistic direction of ENO with a series of modernist interpretations of classic operas as well as productions of newly commissioned operas. That year, David Alden staged a controversial ENO production of Tchaikovsky
's Mazeppa
that became emblematic of the new era. At the end of Act II when the hero Kochubey and his friend Iskra are dragged to the executioner's block, Alden shocked his audience with a gruesome chainsaw massacre that set the tone for the bloody mad scene in Act III and forever enshrined his production in the minds of London opera goers as "the Chainsaw Mazeppa" that "became a sort of shorthand for the entire Jonas project — brutal, uncompromising, unmissable, the ultimate succès de scandale."
Sadly enough, it appears that neither Mazeppa nor Simon Boccanegra, Ballo in Maschera - or any of the other power house productions have been preserved on videotape.
Over the next decade, Alden continued in his role as provocateur and key collaborator of the ENO Power House with Giuseppe Verdi
's Simon Boccanegra
and Un ballo in maschera
, George Frideric Handel
's Ariodante
, Hector Berlioz
' La Damnation de Faust
, Richard Wagner
's Tristan und Isolde
and more recently, a 2006 production of Leoš Janáček
's Jenůfa
that won an Olivier Award
for Best New Opera Production.
, and from then to his departure in 2006, he made David Alden productions a mainstay of his tenure. Those included a Handel series with Ariodante
, Orlando
, Rinaldo
and Rodelinda; Claudio Monteverdi
's L'incoronazione di Poppea
and Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
; Richard Wagner
's Tannhäuser
and Der Ring des Nibelungen
; Francesco Cavalli
's La Calisto
, Verdi's La forza del destino
, Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades
and Alban Berg
's Lulu
.
At the 2006 Munich Opera Festival, the Staatsoper made the extraordinary gesture of reviving eight of those productions to celebrate its association with Alden. In addition, he was awarded a special Bavarian Theater Prize for Individual Artistic Achievement in recognition of his artistic contributions to the Bavarian State Opera.
, Vienna Volksoper
and Komische Oper Berlin
. He staged a new production of Thomas Adès
' Powder Her Face
for the Aldeburgh Festival
and has mounted operas in Cologne, Frankfurt, Antwerp and Graz. In 1995 he directed in Tel Aviv the world première of Josef Tal's Joseph – a Kafkaesque story about modern society's norms and illusions.
Alden's collaborations with American companies include operas for Lyric Opera of Chicago
, Metropolitan Opera
, Houston Grand Opera
and the Spoleto Festival USA
. He created the American premieres of Siegfried Matthus
' Judith for Santa Fe Opera
and Karol Szymanowski
's King Roger
for Long Beach Opera
, a production so deconstruction
ist that the reviewer for The New York Times
reported "the opera still awaits a true American premiere." In 1990, he mounted the world premiere of William Bolcom
's cabaret opera Casino Paradise at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia, and in 1992, he co-directed — with his brother Christopher — the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas in a production for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
led by Daniel Barenboim
.
For film and television, Alden has directed Franz Schubert
's Die Winterreise
with Ian Bostridge
and Julius Drake
, Kurt Weill
's Die sieben Todsünden and a documentary on the life of Verdi for BBC Television. Several of his stage productions have been filmed for wider video release.
for Los Angeles Opera
was recast as a Vietnam era tale of moral corruption where "Wozzeck and his cronies are Green Berets packing machetes and M-16s", where "the Captain is a cigar-chomping skinhead in backpack and fatigues" and in whose "dreamlike escapes from reality... Wozzeck comes home to his girlfriend Marie after a hard day of defoliating forests and hunting Viet Cong. Clearly, Alden's apocalypse is here and now."
His first production of Richard Strauss
' Salome
in 2006, presented in Lithuania, eschewed the biblical timeframe of Oscar Wilde
's original for a more contemporary, Soviet era setting exposing "fifty years of occupation, suppression and persecution" with Herod portrayed as a debauched "dictator who senses the approach of the end of his regime."
And though Alden's Munich staging of Rinaldo
in 2000 pre-dated September 11
and George W. Bush
's Iraq War, he had the timely insight to move the opera's action from the medieval Crusader era of Torquato Tasso
's Gerusalemme liberata
to the modern day Middle East and to "[make] it something of an American Radical Religious Right Crusade...[putting] a self-promoting contemporary Protestant Christian Evangelist center stage."
Christopher Alden (director)
Christopher Alden is a radical theater director known for staging revisionist productions of opera. He is the twin brother of David Alden, also an opera director, and belongs to a generation of modernist directors that includes Robert Wilson and Peter Sellars, though Alden retains his own personal...
, also an opera director in the revisionist mold. The two brothers have covered much of the same repertoire in their long careers, but whereas Christopher's operatic settings place greater emphasis on his characters' emotional range, David's protagonists are more broadly caricatured and his productions far more politically charged. Another distinguishing feature between them is that David has been more active in Europe throughout his career, having enjoyed a particularly close creative partnership with Sir Peter Jonas
Peter Jonas (director)
Sir Peter Jonas, CBE, FRCM, FRNCM, FRSA, b.14 October 1946, is a British Arts Administrator and opera company director.-Career:Jonas studied at Worth School, and took an English Literature degree at the University of Sussex...
for more than two decades, at both the English National Opera
English National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
and the Bavarian State Opera
Bavarian State Opera
The Bavarian State Opera is an opera company based in Munich, Germany.Its orchestra is the Bavarian State Orchestra.- History:The opera company which was founded under Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy has been in existence since 1653...
.
Early life
David Alden and his identical twin Christopher were born into a show business family closely tied to Broadway. Their father was the playwright Jerome AldenJerome Alden
Jerome Alden was an American playwright and screenwriter for television and documentary films. He was born in Portland, Oregon. He graduated from the University of Oregon. He wrote the one-man play Bully, about Theodore Roosevelt, and the book for the musical Teddy & Alice, which was also about...
, and their mother was the ballerina Barbara Gaye, who danced in the original productions of On the Town and Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun (musical)
Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley , who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler.The 1946 Broadway production...
with Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...
. As eight-year-olds, they listened at home to recordings of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, and as teenagers in the mid-'60s, they frequently bought standing room tickets at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
. By age 13, both had decided they wanted to direct opera.
David studied at the University of Pennsylvania and like his brother, launched his directing career with Opera Omaha
Opera Omaha
Opera Omaha is an opera company in Omaha, Nebraska. It is well known for premiering Wakonda's Dream, a contemporary opera about Native Americans set in the Niobrara....
in the 1970s. In 1976, he visited Europe where he immersed himself in the cultural stream of contemporary opera directors the likes of Giorgio Strehler
Giorgio Strehler
Giorgio Strehler was an Italian opera and theatre director.-Biography:Strehler was born in Barcola, Trieste to an Austrian father and a Franco-Slovene mother; he grew up speaking Italian but spoke French well and his German was passable. He became suddenly fatherless at the age of three, his...
, Harry Kupfer
Harry Kupfer
Harry Kupfer is a German opera director. He studied theatre in Leipzig and directed his first opera, Antonín Dvořák's Rusalka, in 1958....
, Hans Neuenfels
Hans Neuenfels
Hans Neuenfels is a German writer, poet, film producer, librettist, theatre director and opera director.- Biography :...
and Ruth Berghaus
Ruth Berghaus
Ruth Berghaus was a German choreographer and opera and theatre director.Berghaus was born in Dresden and studied Expressionist dance and Dance direction with Gret Palucca there and was an advanced student at the German Academy of Arts in Berlin, at least part of the time under Walter Felsenstein -...
. Theirs was a generation of direct heirs to the Expressionist
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
movement and, in particular, to Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
. For Alden, the exposure was a revelation that unlocked intense passions he had long wanted to express in musical theater. His first European production in the late ‘70s was a Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
for Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies funded by the Scottish Government...
that, he says, was assailed by the critics because "in England, it was still very early to speak directly to the audience with the style I was attempting and place passion and schizophrenia on the stage."
In 1980, Alden was tapped by the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
to replace the late Herbert Graf
Herbert Graf
Herbert Grafton was an Austrian-American opera producer. Born in Vienna in 1904, he was the son of Max Graf , the Austrian author, critic, musicologist and member of Sigmund Freud's circle of friends...
in its restaging of Wozzeck
Wozzeck
Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's...
as well as the revivals in 1985 and 1988. As John Rockwell noted in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, "Alden's staging… (is) indebted to Expressionist films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene from a screenplay by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. It is one of the most influential of German Expressionist films and is often considered one of the greatest horror movies of the silent era. This movie is cited as...
, full of stark silhouettes and lurching zombies."
Powerhouse years at English National Opera
In 1984, Peter JonasPeter Jonas (director)
Sir Peter Jonas, CBE, FRCM, FRNCM, FRSA, b.14 October 1946, is a British Arts Administrator and opera company director.-Career:Jonas studied at Worth School, and took an English Literature degree at the University of Sussex...
— formerly artistic director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
— was named to succeed the Earl of Harewood
George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood
George Henry Hubert Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, KBE AM , styled The Hon. George Lascelles before 1929 and Viscount Lascelles between 1929 and 1947, was the elder son of the 6th Earl of Harewood , and Princess Mary, Princess Royal, the only daughter of King George V of the United Kingdom and...
as general director of English National Opera
English National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
. Together with music director Mark Elder
Mark Elder
Sir Mark Philip Elder, CBE is a British conductor. He is the music director of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, England.-Biography:Elder was born in Hexham, Northumberland, England, the son of a dentist...
and stage director David Pountney
David Pountney
David Pountney is a British theatre and opera director and librettist internationally known for his productions of rarely performed operas and new productions of classic works...
, they became the ruling "Power House" triumvirate that re-invigorated the artistic direction of ENO with a series of modernist interpretations of classic operas as well as productions of newly commissioned operas. That year, David Alden staged a controversial ENO production of Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's Mazeppa
Mazeppa (opera)
Mazeppa, properly Mazepa , is an opera in 3 acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Victor Burenin and is based on Pushkin's poem Poltava....
that became emblematic of the new era. At the end of Act II when the hero Kochubey and his friend Iskra are dragged to the executioner's block, Alden shocked his audience with a gruesome chainsaw massacre that set the tone for the bloody mad scene in Act III and forever enshrined his production in the minds of London opera goers as "the Chainsaw Mazeppa" that "became a sort of shorthand for the entire Jonas project — brutal, uncompromising, unmissable, the ultimate succès de scandale."
Sadly enough, it appears that neither Mazeppa nor Simon Boccanegra, Ballo in Maschera - or any of the other power house productions have been preserved on videotape.
Over the next decade, Alden continued in his role as provocateur and key collaborator of the ENO Power House with Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Simón Bocanegra by Antonio García Gutiérrez....
and Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
, George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
's Ariodante
Ariodante
Ariodante is an opera seria in three acts by Handel. The anonymous Italian libretto was based on a work by Antonio Salvi, which in turn was adapted from Canti 5 and 6 of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso...
, Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
' La Damnation de Faust
The Damnation of Faust
La damnation de Faust , Op. 24 is a work for four solo voices, full seven-part chorus, large children's chorus and orchestra by the French composer Hector Berlioz. He called it a "légende dramatique"...
, Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
and more recently, a 2006 production of Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
's Jenůfa
Jenufa
Jenůfa is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the Brno Theater, Brno, 21 January 1904...
that won an Olivier Award
Laurence Olivier Awards
The Laurence Olivier Award is presented annually by the Society of London Theatre to recognise excellence in professional theatre. Named after the renowned British actor Laurence Olivier, they are given for West End shows and other productions staged in London...
for Best New Opera Production.
Bavarian State Opera
In 1993, Peter Jonas became intendant of the Bavarian State OperaBavarian State Opera
The Bavarian State Opera is an opera company based in Munich, Germany.Its orchestra is the Bavarian State Orchestra.- History:The opera company which was founded under Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy has been in existence since 1653...
, and from then to his departure in 2006, he made David Alden productions a mainstay of his tenure. Those included a Handel series with Ariodante
Ariodante
Ariodante is an opera seria in three acts by Handel. The anonymous Italian libretto was based on a work by Antonio Salvi, which in turn was adapted from Canti 5 and 6 of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso...
, Orlando
Orlando (opera)
Orlando is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel written for the Royal Academy of Music . The Italian-language libretto was adapted from Carlo Sigismondo Capece's L'Orlando after Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, which was also the source of Handel's operas Alcina and...
, Rinaldo
Rinaldo (opera)
Rinaldo is an opera by George Frideric Handel composed in 1711. It is the first Italian language opera written specifically for the London stage. The libretto was prepared by Giacomo Rossi from a scenario provided by Aaron Hill. The work was first performed at the Queen's Theatre in London's...
and Rodelinda; Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
's L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea is an Italian baroque opera comprising a prologue and three acts, first performed in Venice during the 1642–43 carnival season. The music, attributed to Claudio Monteverdi, is a setting of a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello...
and Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria is an opera in a prologue and five acts , set by Claudio Monteverdi to a libretto by Giacomo Badoaro. The opera was first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice during the 1639–1640 carnival season...
; Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
and Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
; Francesco Cavalli
Francesco Cavalli
Francesco Cavalli was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. His real name was Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron Federico Cavalli, a Venetian nobleman.-Life:Cavalli was born at Crema, Lombardy...
's La Calisto
La Calisto
La Calisto is an opera by Francesco Cavalli with a libretto by Giovanni Faustini. The libretto was published in 1651 by Giuliani and Batti. The opera received its first performance on 28 November 1651 at the Teatro San Apollinare, Venice...
, Verdi's La forza del destino
La forza del destino
La forza del destino is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino , by Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager. It was first performed...
, Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades
The Queen of Spades (opera)
The Queen of Spades, Op. 68 is an opera in 3 acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on a short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin. The premiere took place in 1890 in St...
and Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
's Lulu
Lulu (opera)
Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora .-Composition history:...
.
At the 2006 Munich Opera Festival, the Staatsoper made the extraordinary gesture of reviving eight of those productions to celebrate its association with Alden. In addition, he was awarded a special Bavarian Theater Prize for Individual Artistic Achievement in recognition of his artistic contributions to the Bavarian State Opera.
Directing career in Europe and the U.S.
In Europe, Alden has also produced operas for Welsh National OperaWelsh National Opera
Welsh National Opera is an opera company founded in Cardiff, Wales in 1943. The WNO tours Wales, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world extensively. Annually, it gives more than 120 performances of eight main stage operas to a combined audience of around 150,000 people...
, Vienna Volksoper
Vienna Volksoper
The Vienna Volksoper is a major opera house in Vienna, Austria. It gives about three hundred performances of twenty-five productions during an annual season running from September through June....
and Komische Oper Berlin
Komische Oper Berlin
The Komische Oper Berlin is an opera company in Berlin, Germany, which specializes in German language productions of opera, operetta and musicals....
. He staged a new production of Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...
' Powder Her Face
Powder Her Face
Powder Her Face is a chamber opera in two acts, Op. 14 by the British composer Thomas Adès , with an English libretto by Philip Hensher. The opera is 2 hours 20 minutes long...
for the Aldeburgh Festival
Aldeburgh Festival
The Aldeburgh Festival is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on the main concert hall at Snape Maltings...
and has mounted operas in Cologne, Frankfurt, Antwerp and Graz. In 1995 he directed in Tel Aviv the world première of Josef Tal's Joseph – a Kafkaesque story about modern society's norms and illusions.
Alden's collaborations with American companies include operas for Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
, Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
, Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
and the Spoleto Festival USA
Spoleto Festival USA
Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the world's major performing arts festivals. It was founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to establish a counterpart to the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy...
. He created the American premieres of Siegfried Matthus
Siegfried Matthus
Siegfried Matthus is a German composer and opera director living in Berlin and is one of Germany's most often performed contemporary composers.- Biography :Matthus attended secondary school in Rheinsberg, followed by studies at the Hochschule für Musik...
' Judith for Santa Fe Opera
Santa Fe Opera
The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...
and Karol Szymanowski
Karol Szymanowski
Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Polish composer and pianist.-Life:Szymanowski was born into a wealthy land-owning Polish gentry family in Tymoszówka, then in the Russian Empire, now in Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine. He studied music privately with his father before going to Gustav Neuhaus'...
's King Roger
King Roger
King Roger is an opera by the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski set to a libretto by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. It was first performed on 19 June 1926 in Warsaw, Poland...
for Long Beach Opera
Long Beach Opera
Long Beach Opera is a Southern California opera company serving the greater Los Angeles and Orange County metroplex. Founded in 1979, it is the oldest established professional opera company in the L.A. area...
, a production so deconstruction
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
ist that the reviewer for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reported "the opera still awaits a true American premiere." In 1990, he mounted the world premiere of William Bolcom
William Bolcom
William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973–2008...
's cabaret opera Casino Paradise at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia, and in 1992, he co-directed — with his brother Christopher — the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas in a production for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
led by Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim, KBE is an Argentinian-Israeli pianist and conductor. He has served as music director of several major symphonic and operatic orchestras and made numerous recordings....
.
For film and television, Alden has directed Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
's Die Winterreise
Winterreise
Winterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert , a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin...
with Ian Bostridge
Ian Bostridge
Ian Bostridge CBE is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera singer and as a song recitalist.-Early life and education:...
and Julius Drake
Julius Drake
Julius Drake is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician.-Biography:Drake was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1981 and developed a special affinity for the music of Robert...
, Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
's Die sieben Todsünden and a documentary on the life of Verdi for BBC Television. Several of his stage productions have been filmed for wider video release.
Opera as political theater
David Alden's opera settings are known for their expression of rage at the human condition. He has also been in the forefront of presenting opera as a running commentary on current or near current historical and political affairs. His 1988 production of Berg's WozzeckWozzeck
Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's...
for Los Angeles Opera
Los Angeles Opera
The Los Angeles Opera is an opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center.-Current leadership:...
was recast as a Vietnam era tale of moral corruption where "Wozzeck and his cronies are Green Berets packing machetes and M-16s", where "the Captain is a cigar-chomping skinhead in backpack and fatigues" and in whose "dreamlike escapes from reality... Wozzeck comes home to his girlfriend Marie after a hard day of defoliating forests and hunting Viet Cong. Clearly, Alden's apocalypse is here and now."
His first production of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
' Salome
Salome (opera)
Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....
in 2006, presented in Lithuania, eschewed the biblical timeframe of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
's original for a more contemporary, Soviet era setting exposing "fifty years of occupation, suppression and persecution" with Herod portrayed as a debauched "dictator who senses the approach of the end of his regime."
And though Alden's Munich staging of Rinaldo
Rinaldo
Rinaldo may refer to:*Rinaldo , an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel*Rinaldo , a cantata by Johannes Brahms*Rinaldo , a character in Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered...
in 2000 pre-dated September 11
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
and George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's Iraq War, he had the timely insight to move the opera's action from the medieval Crusader era of Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem...
's Gerusalemme liberata
Jerusalem Delivered
Jerusalem Delivered is an epic poem by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso first published in 1581, which tells a largely mythified version of the First Crusade in which Catholic knights, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, battle Muslims in order to take Jerusalem...
to the modern day Middle East and to "[make] it something of an American Radical Religious Right Crusade...[putting] a self-promoting contemporary Protestant Christian Evangelist center stage."