Franz Welser-Most has resigned the baton of Zurich Opera's FLEDERMAUS, because of vampires:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-web-0507-music-vampiresmay08,0,4377455.story

I suppose this is another nail in the coffin (as it were) of the long-awaited Marschner revival ....

I do admire F W-M for doing this.  If more conductors 'faced down' their directors like this, it might have some effect on the plague of daft productions afflicting Europe's opera houses.

I'd like to see condutor's given power of veto over their directors as a matter of principle.  Maybe in some houses, they have this already?

Indeed, R-T.

But I think a situation where a producer's vision of a piece and a conductor's fundamentally conflict should be one to be avoided.  An example: the rather woeful Gotz Freidrich Ring that was broadcast on BBC2 in the autumn of 1990, splendidly conducted by Sawallisch: the end of Gotterdammerung was played with all the characters basically lying on top of each other, dead.

shurely "dungeon"?

Frankly no-one could afford to do it, I believe, Tam.  Elaborate stage machinery, huge numbers of scenery changes each with their own set of canvas painted flats and backdrops etc.  And the fire regulations wouldn't allow allow all those oil-lamps and candles.

On top of which, I am fairly certain there would be no-one left in the auditorium after the first interval. Contemporary audiences have expectations heightened by television and by multi-million-dollar special effects in the movies.  The number who would put up with weary old tat "because it is authentic tat" is, I believe, very small indeed.

Anyway, that bloody old BARBER OF SEVILLE at ENO has been going nearly since Rossini's time anyhow

Drottingholm is a lovely little theatre, but does it stage the C19th "big" works alongside the baroque and rococo?   I rather agree with your point that audiences might accept "period" pieces staged in a HIP way  (which is anyhow guesswork to a much larger degree than on the musical side)....   but ask them to accept THE FLYING DUTCHMAN done entirely with painted canvas rollers and a C19th "melodramatic" school of acting?   And all in the gloom of pseudo oil-lamp/mirror-lens lights?? 

I have a vague professional interest in this kind of opera theatre, so I would be interested in the views of others? 

Doesn't it occur to us that we are already asking audience for a double faith-leap into suspension of belief already with opera...  first, that we are portraying historical events on a stage in a building with performers whose only acquaintance (for example) with seafaring and the legend of the Flying Dutchman is having been on the Calais-Dover ferry;  and secondly, that instead of merely acting the piece,  they are going to - ehem - sing about it instead.  If we then superimpose a third "conceit",  that we require them to watch all this done deliberately without the technical facilities available, with primitive scenery, hand-winched flies, and a style of acting that can only be guessed at...   isn't the camel's back going to break??

Of course there have also been the English Bach Festival productions at the ROH which attempted to recreate historic performance practice,  using the baroque palette of stage-gesture (which is partly preserved in historic accounts), dance and costume.  Did anyone ever see any of these?  (They were before my time, but I heard about them from others - never, I'm afraid, with any enthusiasm, and usually described to me as an effete and thumb-twiddling entertainment).

100% agreement from me on that.  Everything starts and finishes with the text. It's what existed before the composer wrote a note of his/her musical score, it's what motivated the composer to want to write the piece at all.  You have to mine the text for every nuance of meaning, and make sure that you've brought it all - or as much as your budget will allow you! - to the stage in what you do.