He also staged there Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in 1981, Puccini's La Bohème in 1982, Reimann's Lear, Verdi's Rigoletto and Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov in 1983, among many others.
[7][8][9] The Los Angeles Times called the production "high-tech kitsch ... a bizarre stylistic jumble";[10] The Guardian remarked on a Götterdämmerung "full of paltry gimmickry";[11] and The Times commented that "the production gets progressively lazier [and] peters out in the clichés of the day before yesteryear, which Kupfer doubtless thinks the last word in modernity".
[12] Kupfer premiered several operas, including Udo Zimmermann's Levins Mühle [de] at the Staatstheater Dresden in 1973, conducted by Siegfried Kurz.
[1][21][22] Kupfer worked in the tradition of realistic directing, as developed by Walter Felsenstein and practised especially at the Komische Oper Berlin.
The works are interpreted with a focus on implications drawn from them; actions on stage, conflicts and the development of drama are related to the score and to the logic of relationships between the characters.
Kupfer always worked individually with the singers, including the choir members, requesting talent for acting and rendering credibility to the actions.
The characters are, in the tradition of Bertolt Brecht's method of dialectic theatre, always placed in historic political context, which determines their actions at least partly.