Hitchcock Was Right. Or Not.

He didn't say they were cattle. He said treat them like cattle. But nothing about dressing them funny. As in:

L.A. Opera declined to make Freyer, 76, available for interview because he was in rehearsals. In the past, Freyer has expressed detachment when asked about public reaction to his work. "Not my problem," he told The Times in 2009, when asked about the public's expectations.

A painter as well as a director, Freyer also has told The Times that he sees himself primarily as a visual artist. His stage productions, which are well-known in Europe, are highly abstract interpretations.

L.A. Opera defended Freyer. "The psychological dimension is outsourced to other forms of expression, like the lighting. It's hard for singers to understand the context of scale of what he's doing," said Christopher Koelsch, the head of artistic planning. But Koelsch acknowledged that "it seems like [Freyer] has not done the best job in selling that" to the cast.

Fucking sheep singers can't be expected to get any of this, can they? Hear them whine that

Freyer's avant-garde staging — which features a steeply tilted stage, bulky costumes and oversized masks — interferes with their acting and singing and poses excruciating physical burdens.

"I'm not going to pull any punches here, and I want to tell it like it is.* This entire production has been a trying and difficult time," Treleaven said. "The character development that I bring to the part is almost expunged by this clown-like makeup," he said, adding that he has sustained two minor injuries on the angled stage.

Watson called the set "the most dangerous stage I've been on in my entire career. …Your whole neck is tipped wrong. It's very painful to do it for hours."

*Those two clichés put us off Mr. Treleaven immediately, not to ignore the Opera's wholesale outsourcing of the psychological dimension, & "context of scale." The hardest job of today's independent/alternative crusader for truth/critic/arrogant loudmouth is determining what is most contemptible in the target-rich environment.