We would think that the tradition of „park and bark” is reminiscent of a past operatic theatre, which is only mentioned in an ironic sense nowadays. My experiences as an acting teacher for opera singers and a recent reading of Stanislavski’s and Felsenstein’s thoughts made me realise, that although a lot has changed in the past almost 100 years regarding the tasks of an opera singer as an actor, it is far from enough. Through reading these two important figures of 20th-century theatre, I am trying to build up a guide for opera singers regarding their tasks as actors. In the second part, I am trying to find answers to the question of how it is possible that some of the “old” practices and habits of operatic performance still stubbornly persist in today’s Musiktheater.