FROM AROUND THE WORLD: MUNICH.

The world premiere of Richard Strauss's Arabella took place in Dresden on July 1, 1933. On November 23 of that year, the opera came to Munich's Nationaltheater. The work has seen a total of seven new stagings at the Bavarian Staatsoper, four of these by Rudolf Hartmann (1939, 1952, 1959, 1965), whose productions were classically conceived and considered to be classics, even in their own time. When, in 1977, Peter Beauvais dared to deal more realistically with the plight of the bankrupt Waldner family, his reward was a storm of authentic Bavarian indignation. Times have changed, and audiences have become more tolerant, even in Bavaria's conservative capital.

The director of the Staatsoper's seventh new production of Arabella (premiere, March 12) was Andreas Homoki, the man who gave Munich a fascinatingly unorthodox view of Mozart's Idomeneo several years ago. Homoki placed Arabella in Vienna, not in the 1860s, as specified in the libretto, but in the period when the work was composed.

This then was a world that was about to disappear forever. The Waldners pretend to have money, but at the same time their furniture is being impounded, piece by piece. Mandryka's money is gobbled up by one and all, but it doesn't seem to go very far. If his country estate represents a nostalgic oasis of "life as it always was," its days are also numbered. A mood of surreality, of impending disaster, pervades.

Wolfgang Gussmann's set put us in the middle of the Waldners' hotel apartment, which appeared to have neither walls nor rooms nor doorways. What remained of furniture and bookcases was on the perimeter, and Arabella's bed was smack in the middle of the stage. The floor was like a half globe, rounded and steeply raked. From a strictly physiological standpoint, the singers had difficulty standing up straight or even gaining a foothold. I have seldom seen a group of artists more uncomfortable onstage, and that translated into vocal unease and nervous tension. Performers made awkward exits either through gaps in the furniture or over a table and onto an outer wall. This unit set served for all three acts and contributed mightily to the productions downfall.

As the curtain opened, Arabella sat dreamily on her bed, thinking perhaps of the unknown "right" man, the soulmate who will carry her away. Neither composer nor librettist wanted her onstage at the beginning, and she ought not be there. Was Homoki giving dues to his concept? Would this evening be Arabella's dream? Not completely, but why else would the Act II ball take place in the title character's bedroom? Why would Mandryka sit on Arabella's bed for the wonderful first meeting at the beginning of Act II?

Gussmann's costumes were straight out of the 1920s and, with one major exception, quite effective. Count Waldner, for example, was a brilliantly costumed caricature, a pink-cheeked ...