Opera, and its modern successor, the musical, have always required more suspension of disbelief than other types of artistic expression. They attempt to combine music, the most abstract of all the art forms, with theatre, which is the least abstract. It sounds like it shouldn’t work, yet it often does. Maybe because the expectation of a faithful reproduction of reality is removed, opera frees listeners to open up to some deeper truths. Werner Herzog, who is directing operas himself, has coined the term ecstatic truth. I’d like to propose ecstatic realism to describe opera’s attempt at faithfulness to life.
The level of disbelief suspension required by modern opera goes even beyond what was traditionally required. Modern opera staging, for some time now, has become an exercise in competitive preposterousness. Krithika Varagur’s article about her visit to the 2026 Bayreuth festival in the Paris Review of Books provides some great examples.
Nehaveigur 