Editing Pierre Boulez (section)

===Work in the opera house===
[[File:Gwyneth Chéreau (großer).jpg|upright=.8|alt=Brunnhilde confronting Siegfried in Act 2 of Wagner's Götterdämmerung in the centenary Ring at Bayreuth|thumb|The [[Jahrhundertring|1976 centenary production]] of ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' at the [[Bayreuth Festival]], conducted by Boulez]]
Boulez also conducted in the opera house. His chosen repertoire was small and included no Italian opera. Apart from Wagner, he conducted only twentieth-century works. Of his work with Wieland Wagner on ''Wozzeck'' and ''Parsifal'', Boulez said: "I would willingly have hitched, if not my entire fate, then at least a part of it, to someone like him, for [our] discussions about music and productions were thrilling." They planned other productions together, including Richard Strauss's ''[[Salome (opera)|Salome]]'' and ''[[Elektra (opera)|Elektra]]'', Mussorgsky's ''Boris Godunov'' and Mozart's ''[[Don Giovanni]]''. However, by the time rehearsals for their Bayreuth ''Parsifal'' began Wieland was already gravely ill and he died in October 1966.<ref>Boulez (2003), 8; Boulez (2017), 41.</ref>

When the Frankfurt ''Wozzeck'' was revived after Wieland's death, Boulez was deeply disillusioned by the working conditions: "there was no rehearsal, no care taken over anything. The cynicism of the way an opera house like that was run disgusted me. It still disgusts me." He later said<ref name=Blight>{{cite news|title=Boulez and the blight of the opera|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4703931/Boulez-and-the-blight-of-the-opera.html|access-date=27 March 2016|work=The Telegraph|date=7 September 1996|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160410170927/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4703931/Boulez-and-the-blight-of-the-opera.html|archive-date=10 April 2016}}</ref> that it was this experience which prompted his notorious remarks in an interview the following year in ''[[Der Spiegel]]'', in which he claimed that "no opera worth mentioning had been composed since 1935", that "a [[The Beatles|Beatles]] record is certainly cleverer (and shorter) than a [[Hans Werner Henze|Henze]] opera" and that "the most elegant" solution to opera's moribund condition would be "to blow the opera houses up".<ref>{{cite news|title=Sprengt die Opernhäuser in die Luft!|url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-46353389.html|access-date=29 March 2016|work=Der Spiegel|date=25 September 1967|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305171213/http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-46353389.html|archive-date=5 March 2016}}</ref>

In 1967, Boulez, theatre director [[Jean Vilar]] and choreographer [[Maurice Béjart]] were asked to devise a scheme for the reform of the Paris Opéra, with a view to Boulez becoming its music director. Their plan was derailed by the political fallout from the 1968 student protests.<ref>Heyworth (1986), 31–32.</ref> In the mid-1980s, Boulez became vice president of the planned [[Opéra Bastille]] in Paris, working with Daniel Barenboim, who was to be its music director. In 1988 [[Pierre Bergé]] was appointed president of the Bastille opera. He dismissed Barenboim and Boulez withdrew in solidarity.<ref>{{cite news |last=Rockwell |first=John |date=10 June 1992 |title=Suddenly, Opera Is Everywhere in Paris |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/10/arts/suddenly-opera-is-everywhere-in-paris.html |newspaper= [[The New York Times]] |access-date=30 April 2016 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160601141455/http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/10/arts/suddenly-opera-is-everywhere-in-paris.html |archive-date=1 June 2016 }}</ref>

Boulez conducted only specific projects—in productions by leading stage directors—when he could be satisfied that conditions were right. Thanks to his years with the Renaud-Barrault company, the theatrical dimension was as important to him as the musical and he always attended staging rehearsals.<ref>Jampol, 10.</ref>

[[File:ParticeChéreau.jpg|alt=refer to caption|thumb|left|upright|Patrice Chéreau]]

For the centenary ''Ring'' in Bayreuth, Boulez originally asked [[Ingmar Bergman]] then Peter Brook to direct, both of whom refused. Peter Stein initially agreed but withdrew in 1974.<ref>Boulez, Chéreau, Peduzzi and Schmidt, 15–16.</ref> [[Patrice Chéreau]], who was primarily a theatre director, accepted and went on to create one of the defining opera productions of modern times. According to [[Allan Kozinn]] the production "helped open the floodgates of directorial reinterpretation of opera" (sometimes known as ''[[Regietheater]]''). Chéreau treated the story in part as an allegory of capitalism, drawing on ideas that George Bernard Shaw explored in ''[[The Perfect Wagnerite]]'' in 1898, and using imagery from the Industrial Age;<ref name=Kozinn>{{cite news|last=Kozinn|first=Allan|author-link=Allan Kozinn|title=Patrice Chéreau, Opera, Stage and Film Director, Dies at 68|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/arts/patrice-chereau-opera-stage-and-film-director-dies-at-68.html|access-date=27 March 2016|work=The New York Times|date=7 October 2013|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150928214816/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/arts/patrice-chereau-opera-stage-and-film-director-dies-at-68.html |archive-date=28 September 2015}}</ref> he achieved an exceptional degree of naturalism in the singers' performances.<ref name=Millington/> Boulez's conducting was no less controversial, emphasising continuity, flexibility and transparency over mythic grandeur and weight.<ref>Boulez, Chéreau, Peduzzi and Schmidt, 22–23.</ref> In its first year the production met with hostility from the largely conservative audience, and around thirty orchestral musicians refused to work with Boulez in subsequent seasons.<ref>Wagner, 167.</ref> Both production and musical realisation grew in stature over the following four years and after the final performance in 1980 there was a 90-minute ovation.<ref>Barbedette, 183.</ref>