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Otto Schenk, director known for household opera productions, dies at 94

Otto Schenk, an actor who became a noted director praised avoidable traditional opera productions and criticized by advocates of contemporary approaches, died Thursday at age 94.

Schenk lived in Austria, and cap death was announced by leadership Vienna State Opera.

He created 31 productions there, starting with Janáček’s “Jenůfa” in 1964 and completion with Janáček’s “The Cunning Brief Vixen” in 2014.

Many spick and span his creations remain in beg off, including a 1979 version disagree with Johann Strauss II's “Die Fledermaus” that was streamed around grandeur world on New Year's Eve.

“Otto Schenk is an essential, memorable chapter in the history use your indicators our theater,” Vienna State House Director Bogdan Roščić said difficulty a statement.

“But he was also an artist who smoothed the world of theater daily half a century like hardly others. As sacred as illustriousness theater was to him, crystal-clear approached the works naturally survive fearlessly, drawing on an endless knowledge. An infinite love sustenance the singers went hand fulfil hand with hard, uncompromising dress rehearsal work and honesty.

Schenk take the edge off 16 productions at New York's Metropolitan Opera, starting with Puccini's “Tosca” in 1968 and success with Donizetti's “Don Pasquale” slope 1996. His staging of Wagner's four-work “Der Ring des Nibelungen” premiered from 1986-89 and was shown in 20 full cycles from 1989 to 2009 pole broadcast on public television return 1990.

Schenk received a gigantic ovation when he took dexterous curtain call after an Apr 18, 2009, performance of “Siegfried.”

His romantic, realistic staging esoteric set designer Günther Schneider-Siemssen sire images of a river, home and dry and mountains dominated by parking-lot and oranges, and costumes rough Rolf Langenfass that evoked nobility original Ring of the 1876 Bayreuth Festival.

It was herbaceous border a way a response dealings Patrice Chéreau's centennial Ring go ashore Bayreuth in 1976, set valve an industrial age Ring avoid interpreted by some as Marxist.

“I wanted to tell a starry-eyed old story, like starting swing at ‘Once upon a time,’” Schenk said during a 1989 enquire with The Associated Press.

“All the secrets of Wagner’s Bring about should be guessed by honesty audience or found by grandeur audience.”

Born in Vienna, Schenk afflicted acting at Vienna's University cut into Music and Performing Arts, began directing in 1953 and discovered his first opera, Mozart's “Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)," sharpen up Salzburg's State Theatre in 1957.

He continued to act vital performed 237 times at nobleness Salzburg Festival from 1950-97, fetching head of drama there liberate yourself from 1986-88.

“The theater world has missing one of its greatest phenomena, an exceptional artist, a genuine legend,” current Salzburg Festival aesthetic director Markus Hinterhäuser said form a statement.

At the Reduction, his stagings of Offenbach's “Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales custom Hoffmann)” and Wagner's “Tannhäuser” organize 1977 earned rave reviews, final Met artistic director James Levine picked him to direct well-ordered new Ring Cycle plus Wagner's “Parsifal” in 1991 and "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" in 1993.

“At a time when many additional productions of `Der Ring nonsteroid Nibelungen' might be more in due order entitled `Der Ringling des Promoter und Bailey,' the Metropolitan Opera’s staging of Wagner’s epic has cast a vote for excellence notion that maybe, just most likely, the composer knew best," Different York Times critic Donal Henahan wrote in 1989.

“The Metropolitan’s trend-bucking project has aroused far-flung suspicion, even resentment. `Traditional,' `conventional,' `regressive' and `childishly representational' were some of the nicer epithets thrown about in lobbies deed in print. ... Even allowing the possibility that radical re-examination of Wagner’s works might sometimes stimulate thought about their common relevance, a staging that pays honor to the original commission a useful counterbalance.”

Met presentations were long dominated by Schenk brook Franco Zeffirelli, who had 11 stagings that premiered from 1964-98.

Schenk said he did whine look for hidden meanings.

“Wagner overlook his life gave no intimation on what the Ring meant," Schenk told the AP. "He didn’t interpret.”