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date: 08 March 2021

Abstract and Keywords

The chapter gives an outline of Sondheim’s shows performed in the subsidized theater in Europe and their history up until 2010. Government-funded theaters were once a natural place for experiment, now lack of subsidy prompts the question: are Sondheim’s shows being exploited to be “respectable” crowd pleasers by the up-market venues, or can they retain some of their challenging, conceptual origins? Should they be performed by opera houses at all? (If not there, then where should they be performed?) Is Sondheim’s work a barometer for our theatrical times? In the future, how can theaters retain the real artistic quest of these works by delving more deeply, more challengingly into their conceptual framework? Will the values of commercial theater and financial conservatism dictate how these pieces are produced?

Keywords: opera houses, subsidized theatre, commercial theater, studio theater, conceptual productions, workshops, theatrical innovation, word setting, Arts Council, economics

Keith Warner

Keith Warner is an internationally renowned theatre and opera director. In the last thirty years he has directed over 150 operas, plays and musicals in fourteen countries worldwide. He is celebrated for his productions of Wagner, including Lohengrin in Bayreuth and Ring Cycles in Tokyo and London (Covent Garden). He championed subsidised companies taking on the Sondheim canon in the early 1980s and directed Pacific Overtures at English National Opera, Being Alive, a gala for Aids Charities at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He will direct a new production of Sweeney Todd at opera houses in Copenhagen, Houston and San Francisco.

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