Dead Director Doesn’t Help Opening of Berlin’s Schiller Theater

It is hard to stage an opera when the director dies six weeks before the premiere -- especially when it’s the world premiere of a work without a plot.

Christoph Schlingensief was meant to direct Jens Joneleit’s “Metanoia” at the Berlin Staatsoper’s temporary home at the Schiller Theater. While the decrepit Staatsoper on Unter den Linden is given a EU240 million ($329 million) overhaul, the company and its leader, Daniel Barenboim, have decamped across town for three years.