From Opera to Theatre: Peter Brook’s Lyric Reconfigurations at the Bouffes du Nord (1981–2010)
From Opera to Theatre: Peter Brook’s Lyric Reconfigurations at the Bouffes du Nord (1981–2010)

Summary/Abstract: In 1980s Paris, Peter Brook’s lyric productions at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, La Tragédie de Carmen (1981), Impressions de Pelléas (1992), and A Magic Flute (2010), profoundly reshaped the operatic repertoire. Through deliberate reductions to scores and librettos, the suppression of secondary characters and chorus, and a re‑organisation of dramatic structure, Brook subordinates musical time to theatrical action, shifting opera toward a stripped, unified theatrical form. Drawing on archival recordings and personal performance experience, this article examines the dual process of adaptation‑dramatization and dialectical reversal that generates newly “natural” operas, and situates Brook’s work within opera’s long history of tension between music and text.

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