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A Study on the Types of Regietheater Opera by Director Soodong Chang: Focused on Seomjingang Naru and Seoul*Orfeo

  • Journal of the Korean Society for Musicology
  • Abbr : JKSM
  • 2026, 34(1), pp.55~96
  • DOI : 10.34303/mscol.2026.34.1.002
  • Publisher : The Korean Society for Musicology
  • Research Area : Arts and Kinesiology > Musicology > Other Musicology
  • Received : April 30, 2026
  • Accepted : May 24, 2026
  • Published : June 30, 2026

Chun, Chung-im 1

1충남대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Regietheater refers to “director’s theatre,” and when an opera performance is shaped in a new direction distinct from the original work according to the director’s intention, it is termed a “Regietheater opera.” The German theatre scholar Jürgen Kühnel (1944–2018) classified Regietheater staging into four types: symbolic staging, a parodic approach based on the drama, staging that relocates the story to the present era, and staging that reflects the director’s psychological response. The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze the Regietheater opera works of director Soodong Chang in order to understand his directorial perspective. Among his Regietheater works, Seomjingang Naru and Seoul*Orfeo, both performed in 2025, are selected as the subjects of analysis. Both works correspond to Kühnel’s fourth type of Regietheater, namely, staging that does not strictly follow the original narrative but instead reflects the director’s psychological response. The characteristics of Soodong Chang’s Regietheater operas can be summarized in three aspects. First, he secures audience empathy through the transformation of the historical setting. In Seomjingang Naru, the grief of a mother who loses her child and wanders in madness searching for the child is overlapped with the painful past of modern Korean history. In Seoul*Orfeo, the setting of the “present era” and “Gwanghwamun Station of the Seoul subway” relocates the operatic narrative into the lives of contemporary people. Second, there is an active incorporation of Korean elements. In pursuit of the globalization of “K-Opera,” both works utilize Korean stories, Korean names, Korean music, and Korean dance. Third, there is an artistic sublimation of han (a uniquely Korean sentiment of deep-seated sorrow and unresolved grief) embedded in Korean history. To incorporate social issues into opera, the director employs a variety of theatrical devices in these two works to reveal an intention to restore the pain and wounds embedded in Korean history. Over a career spanning more than forty years as an opera director, Soodong Chang has continuously fulfilled the social function of art—illuminating and healing social issues—through his Regietheater operas.

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