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| go to lobby page | more reviews | go to other departments | GLENN LONEY'S SHOW NOTES
[01] Munich Festival Opera & Ballet
Wedding scene in Wagner's Lohengrin at Bavarian State Opera. Photo: Copyright © —Wilfried Hösl 1999.
[02] Bavarian State Opera Festival
[03] Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in a Tavern
[04] Swan Song for Lohengrin
[05] Monumental Miller Anna Bolena
[06] Francesca Zambello's Dockside Otello
[07] Rifle-Control for Freischütz
[08] Classics from Bavarian Ballet
[09] Swan Lake
[10] John Neumeier's Sommernachtstraum
[11] Stark Bohème in a Loft
[12] Kammerspiele Classics
[13] Goethe's Urfaust as Elegant Ceremony
[14] Bavarian Amphitryon
[15] A Residenz for Classics
[16] Redneck Streetcar Named Sehnsucht
[17] Zorba the Cat at the Theater der Jugend
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Musical Munich/Dramatic Munich
Part I: Opera & Ballet
Once upon a time, the Munich Festival was limited to the Opera Festival. It opened in July, after the other state and city theatres had closed for the season.But the late—and very much missed—August Everding believed many who came in mid-summer to sample Bavaria's cultural life would also like to see performances of ballet, operetta, musicals, and drama.
So the seasons of these theatres have been adjusted so that most of them now run to the end of July.
That means there's something to see every evening in the subsidized theatres. But there's also now a very lively fringe and pop scene, plus commercial theatre attractions large and small.
One novelty I had to pass up was Mozart's Il Re Pastore as a "Rock Oratorium." This had come direct from the 1999 Vienna Festwochen to Munich's Deutsches Theater.
Wolfgang Staribacher—the producer & composer, associated with the Alpinkatzen—improved on his namesake, Wolfgang Amadeus. His Shepherd-King has been renamed König des Glücks!
He claimed he had catapulted Mozart's genius into the 20th century. Audiences in Vienna greeted his achievement with "stehenden Ovationen" But you get standing ovations everywhere now.
Photos in the red-and-gold brochure made this entertainment look like an especially hectic Rock Concert.
Bavarian State Opera Festival:
The idea of having a Theme for an Opera Festival seems to have originated on the shores of Lake Constance, with Dr. Alfred Wopmann's Bregenzer Dramaturgie for the Bregenz Festival.But it was swiftly adopted in Munich and at the Salzburg Festival. For those opera-lovers who always hated lectures, seminars, and final exams, at least there are no finals at these festivals.
This past summer in the Bavarian capital, the official theme was Heimat—(n)irgendwo. A rough translation could be: Home—somewhere/nowhere.
In former times, the term Heimat embraced not only the house where one lived, but also the area or region. It wasn't super-Nationalistic, but it did imply Homeland, if not quite Fatherland.
Industrialization—and the devastating dislocations of war and exile—have been changing traditional ideas of a native homeland since the 19th century. Recent ravages and ethnic savagery in the Balkans, however, demonstrate that the concept of Heimat remains strong.
Nonetheless, farther north, forced migrations of German Silesians and Sudeten Germans after World War II deprived millions of their homelands. Today, both new opportunities and joblessness make people all over Europe pack up and move on.
This has been much harder for Europeans—both West and East—to do than it has for Americans. Millions of whom had already been uprooted from—or had chosen to leave—their historic homelands.
So this is an eminently current theme for discussion. And for metaphoric representation on the stage. Even the opera-stage.
Peter Jonas, Munich's innovative opera Intendant, proved an ardent advocate of discussions and symposia on the topic—and contemporary rootlessness. In an interview, he noted, in part: "Home is where our personality is formed."
Previous festivals have been distinguished, not only by themes, but also by related arts-installations in front of the National-Theater. Last year it was hundreds of little Garden-Dwarfs, many which were stolen under cover of darkness.
Then there was that wooden horse, lying on its side on the steps of the opera-house. And that sofa which had green grass growing out of it. Well, you get the idea: nothing if not Trendy!
This past summer, the installation was rather disappointing. Atelier van Lieshout, from art-challenged Rotterdam, positioned a specially designed Mobile-Home and a few oddments relating to rootlessness and travel on the cobble-stones of Max-Joseph-Platz, for the edification of opera-goers and the general public.
The crew didn't seem to have many visitors, but you could buy T-Shirts right out of the van! This egregious installation was sponsored by the HypoVereinsbank. I'm glad my German account is with the Dresdner Bank.
"Let's Put on a Play—Or an Opera!"
Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in a Taverna
Achim Freyer's unusual staging of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo—the first of a trio of Monteverdi operas he'll design and direct—proved an excellent visual, philosophical, and emotional illustration of the Heimat Theme and of Rootlessness.Freyer's novel idea was to set this first of all operas in a peasant bar somewhere on the seaside. In one interview, he identified the locale as the seacoast of Sardinia, with the action confined to a Sardis bar, performed by the staff and the regulars.
In another conversation, he moved the scene to Sicily, still keeping it in a rustic bar. He partly selected such a venue—instead of an imagined neo-classical Arcadia, or a baroque landscape—because he wanted to avoid all the production-trappings of later eras of opera. As well as later design-visions of this grandfather of all operas.
But Freyer was also intent on providing a sense of Community in the retelling—and reliving—of an ancient legend, long deeply embedded in the folk-consciousness.
This is also the framework of Nikos Kazantzakis' novel, The Greek Passion, which was recreated at the Bregenz Festival in Martinu's opera of the same name. Greek villagers prepared to re-enact the Passion of Jesus Christ with local amateurs.
As Orpheus' tragic tale unfolds in mythic Greece, it's odd that Freyer was thinking of Sicily and Sardinia. Greek peasants do still know the old tales—or at least they still give their children the old mythic names.
Certainly Malta and Corsica were out, as they don't belong to Italy. But, as Monteverdi was Italian, Freyer must have thought either of these Italian islands would serve his purpose.
On stage, the costumed peasants—in basic boring black, greatly favored by married peasant women around the Mediterranean—could as well have been Greeks as Sardines. But, because they sang Monteverdi's madrigals and plaints with great clarity, elegance, and feeling, the performance of the music did have a sophisticated quality hardly associated with mandolin or bouzouki.
Freyer had the interesting and valid idea of choosing an Outsider in the village for the role of Orfeo. This hero's very special circumstances and overwhelming grief make him the Classic Outsider in his own myth.
You may travel the seacoasts of Greece and Sicily, but you won't find a simple peasant bar like the one Fryer has created for Munich and, initially, for the Wiener Festwochen.
Its floors are covered with chalked graffiti of skulls, hop-scotch patterns, and other design-fragments. Euridice is now dead and languishing in the Underworld, so skulls and skeletons may have some symbolic relevance.
But these images are Freyer Trademarks. They also are used in his current Salzburg staging of Mozart's Magic Flute. so they really aren't site- or opera-specific.
Achim Freyer is, after all, an artist, not merely a stage-designer. He has something to say—or draw—on his own, regardless of what opera or drama he may be decorating. That may explain why—until now—he hasn't worked at the Bavarian State Opera since 1979?
He's also fond of dogs. In the current production, he has an actor in a dog-suit lounging around, as well as a real dog randomly running about his peasant bar. The aesthetic value of these canines—or their relevance to re-telling the tale—remains a mystery.
Ivor Bolton's madrigal ensemble is onstage in costume, their extremely long-necked lutes suggesting historic peasant instruments.
The floor of the bar is a great rectangle, skewed out toward the audience with one corner downstage. Above a glowing blue cyc-wall—with a simple door-opening—there's a long rectangular white screen. And front-and-center, above all this, are the German supertitles.
As the intensity of the action mounts, the upper-stage constructions vanish, leaving a long stylized cyclorama-stretch of sea and sky. Upstage is an up-ended rowboat, with oars on each side making it look like some sort of two-legged insect.
Later, to provide a visual apotheosis, the rowboat sprouts wings and soars upward.
Through all of these production-values, the talented cast performed valiantly, even radiantly on occasion. They also pretended to sip drinks from the bar.
Among the actor-singers of note were John Mark Ainsley [Orfeo], Deborah York [Euridice], Sophie Koch [Speranza], Heidi Brunner, Phillip Ens, Evert Sooster, and Claes H. Ahnsjö.
Slaughterhouse Brabant:
Swan Song for Lohengrin
The Bavarian State Opera—in its innovative, adventurous Post-Modernist mode—is certainly not interested in bringing back 19th century theatre-traditions for great operas of the last century. Historicism gets very short shrift in the National-Theater—though it sometimes stylishly surfaces in the baroque Cuvilliés Court Theatre.Richard Wagner may have seen Lohengrin very clearly, in his mind's eye, standing erect in that Swan-Boat in shining armor and horned helmet. He certainly indicated his wishes about staging in his score.
Wagner may even have helped make the Munich Opera famous, not only with his premieres but also with his affair with Cosima von Bülow and peculiar relationship with the adoring King Ludwig II.
Today, however, he's just another dead composer. Without an agent. So no Swan-Boat for this summer's new production!
For Munich, designer Andreas Reinhardt—working with director Götz Friedrich—decided to show Lohengrin coming from his father Parsifal's far-off and mysterious Grail Castle "through many doors."
When Elsa desperately calls out for a champion to save her life, the neutral dark gray background suddenly reveals a series of doors in different styles and sizes. When Lohengrin comes through the final door, an opening is left in it which could be a swan-shape. But no Swan-Boat.
The basic set is a starkly abstract and sterile space with two inclined planes meeting in the center, suggesting the River Scheldt. The Saxon Army stands stage-left in front of an immense tree-trunk, studded with giant toothpicks: barren spines instead of leafy branches.
Had I not seen Götz Friedrich's Bayreuth Lohengrin years ago, I might have found this scenic abstraction quite avant-garde. But it immediately reminded me of the stage-conformation in Bayreuth—which was even more stark, formal, and sterile.
In Wagner's Festspielhaus, he had the Saxon Army in bleachers on the Stage Left side of the scenic-box. They confronted the Citizens of Brabant, in bleachers on the opposite side. This gave an almost ceremonial, ritual quality to the necessarily limited stage-movement.
The production was even more "distanced" from any conceivable historical period—or fairytale fantasy. It certainly lacked the mythical, hallucinatory quality of Bayreuth's new Lohengrin, designed by Stefanos Lazaridis and Sue Blane.
The reason for this was Friedrich's choice of designer: the artist Günther Ucker. This curious modernist specializes in canvases and solids studded with large-headed nails and spikes of various sizes. Often painted white.
So giant nails were everywhere in evidence. That production was probably the largest Nail-Sculpture Günther Ucker has been able to create.
Perhaps the spines sticking out of the Munich tree-trunk are distant relatives of the Bayreuth nails?
The soldiers wear World War II uniforms, designed by Joanna Bronner. For the citizens of Brabant, standing on the other slope, she has created elemental medieval garb.
They stand in front of a series of long leaning white planks. Elsa and Lohengrin's marriage-bed is an abstractly shaped slab of stone.
No wonder she can't get comfortable on it with Lohengrin. That may be why—in addition to Ortrud's malicious prodding—she ruins the wedding-night with her forbidden questions.
For a pivotal scene in front of the ducal castle, there's a long inclined ramp, backed by a drop which seems made of dressed cow-hide. This is pierced by a door and a window, with a huge slaughtered cow-carcass hanging high above.
At the close—with the restoration of young Gottfried—a large dead black swan is hanging overhead. The symbolic carcass is gone.
Considering the problems Belgium had last summer with tainted meat—not to mention Coca-Cola™—maybe the disappearance of this raw meat was also symbolic.
Michael Bauer's cold white lighting makes the retelling of the story even more coldly clinical. All these visual effects served to "distance" the characters, the actions, and the emotions, so the performance seemed more of a ritual than a gripping Music-Drama.
Peter Schneider conducted, with Peter Seiffert an admirably heroic Lohengrin. Kurt Rydl was doing his royal duty as Henry the Fowler.
But Sergei Leiferkus really savored singing and playing Telramund. He looked and sounded villainous, but it was clear his bravado would collapse without the demonic Ortrud of Waltraud Meier to urge him on.
Meier's Ortrud was fantastic—a very driven, dangerous woman—vocally and dramatically. Any Elsa wouldn't stand a chance against her intrigues, but especially not the Elsa of Adrienne Pieczonka.
The Queen Who Lost Her Head:
Monumental Miller Mounting of Anna Bolena
When Dr. Jonathan Miller stages an opera, you can be certain he's given it a lot of thought. Beginning, of course, with the score—which many theatre-directors do not do, for some of the most noted cannot read music.
TUDOR ROMANCE--Private moment in Jonathan Miller's Munich Anna Bolena. Photo: Copyright © —Wilfried Hösl 1999. Miller also will have thoroughly explored the historical, fictional, and dramatic antecedents of the libretto. He'll bring to his vision of the work a vast acquaintance with relevant artworks and period styles as well.
The philosophical, political, social, and cultural implications of an opera scenario are also important to Miller. All that scholarship and thought might paralyze another director, weighing down a stage-performance with unplayable—and unsingable—subtexts.
That has never been a problem for Miller. After he has given an opera some thought, he cuts to the chase of getting the essentials alive on stage, preferably in a fresh, astonishing framework. No fusty Historicism for him!
His Munich Anna Bolena—thanks to designer Clare Mitchell—does however exult in splendidly rich Tudor costumes. This is after all the magnificent Court of King Henry VIII.
But Miller's set-designer, Peter J. Davison, has created a monumental Post-Modernist milieu for the unfolding of various scenes. This is a gigantic box of great beamed open squares, open up and downstage.
It is standing on the raked stage-floor, which repeats the pattern of squares—suggesting a deadly game of chess with human stakes.
A Tudor tower is seen in the distance in one scene. But most of the set-props or devices—aside from some drop-ins—are Post-Modernist. A tall cage-prison is one. Another is a Privy Council chamber with the great square box construction and huge clear windows.
Plenty of plush Pomp and complicated Circumstance!
Edita Gruberova was both dignified and vulnerable as the repudiated, doomed queen. Roberto Scandiuzzi was a powerful, obviously sensuous, King Henry, understandably attracted to the vibrant Jane Seymour of Vesselina Karasova.
Singing Down the Gangways:
Francesca Zambello's Lofty Dockside Otello
That phony canvas gangway for Titanic was a sad parody, compared with the fantastic set of sloping scaffold-gangways Alison Chitty has devised for Francesca Zambello's stunning new production of Verdi's Otello in Munich.
GANGWAY FOR IAGO--Shakespeare's villain softens up Verdi's Otello. Photo: Copyright © —Wilfried Hösl 1999. Some seasoned opera-viewers were annoyed, suggesting that the women had made the opera into a showcase for industrial scaffolding. That they neglected to present important scenes in specific locales, which could heighten their effect and make them more dramatically relevant.
Actually—strongly aided by the lighting of Mimi Jordan Sherin—such scenes took on added importance in at least two ways.
Scenes of State—which require crowds of dignitaries and spectators—became even more impressive than most stagings because of the masses of singers and extras strung out along the descending planes of the gangways and bunched about the stage.
Intimate scenes, on the other hand, could be simply set at stage-level with a few pieces of furniture—with the empty metal construction above suggesting the harbor docksides of both Venice and Cyprus. Not to overlook their symbolic effect, echoing the complexities of the plot and the dire downward descent of the fortunes of both Otello and Desdemona.
It was especially effective to have Jago above on the naked, empty gangways, sewing seeds of doubt in Otello, transfixed on stage below him.
Zambello may have had no choice in her Otello, the stodgy little Vladimir Bogachov. He had neither the look nor the voice for a majestic, passionate Otello. Nor was he a capable actor.
He was completely outclassed by his Jago, Ruggero Raimondi, clearly the star of the evening. That Raimondi looked old enough to be Otello's father made one wonder why he hadn't been promoted long, long ago, and Otello sent back to acting-school. His authority in the role, both vocally and physically, was immense and a reward for those who were disappointed in the production itself.
Amanda Roocroft—though she has been splendid in some memorable Munich stagings—seemed rather beyond her resources as Desdemona.
The brilliant conductor was none other than the State Opera's GMD, Zubin Mehta.
More Reasons for Rifle-Control:
Mysterious Folkloric Der Freischütz
Zubin Mehta also conducted the new Munich production of Carl Maria von Weber's neo-Gothic opera, Der Freischütz. It's to be hoped Mehta's not a gun-control freak.
READY TO HIT THE BULLSEYE--Rifle-care and magic bullets in Weber's Der Freischütz. Photo: Copyright © —Wilfried Hösl 1999. Designer Jürgen Rose has made the stage a National Rifle Association member's dream. Rifles are everywhere—except in the heroine's bedroom, which features a headboard with a pyramid, sun-rays, God's Eye, and the old motto in German Gothic Script: Gott sieht alles.
It may be very true that God Sees All, but it doesn't save the unfortunate heroine, Agathe [Michaela Kaune]. It's her initial misfortune to grow to young womanhood in an isolated cottage deep in some provincial forest—where real men are expert marksmen, hunters, and occasionally poachers.
The proscenium arch is framed by many sets of antlers from a variety of Bavarian mountain animals. Stuffed eagles and other birds swoop down from overhead.
At the tragic close, the forestage is filled with a long file of village rifles. And a huge stag or elk the hunters have brought home.
To show off the community's masculine shooting-skills, there are periodic contests of target-shooting. This is a very old tradition in German forests, especially in Bavaria, where there are still very exclusive Shooting Clubs.
Max wants to impress Agathe. His mistake is to take the advice of his dangerous chum Kaspar, who knows how to summon up an aspect of Satan, the Black Hunter Samiel.
Max makes a fatal Faustian bargain with Samiel—sealed with the customary blood. He casts three magic bullets which are sure to hit their targets.
This scene, in the demon-haunted Wolfschlucht, is the essence of Gothic mystery and terror. Rose has not diminished it by staging it around the simple hut which is also Agathe's home.
Bayreuth veterans have already seen this simple house. Rose used it first in his collaboration with Dieter Dorn on the Bayreuth Flying Dutchman. In that production, it levitates in mid-air and revolves!
It does some spooky things in this Freischütz as well, and provides Samiel with a base for some rather sinister posturing.
The forest in which the hut sits is represented by two high walls of trees, receding toward upstage, against a vast, empty sky—until a Halloween moon appears.
Hokey as the story may seem, Weber's score is special, with some powerful and some very affecting arias. Ruth Berghaus once staged Freischütz for the Berlin Staatsoper, visually spoofing its romantic, tragic, terrifying, and mysterious pretensions.
As staged by Thomas Langhoff, however, Rose's almost kitschy evocation of the folkloric traditions enshrined in the fable do not work as a visual joke or critique of the opera. Rather, they serve to put it into a sentimental period context—which makes it a relative to one of the Bros. Grimm's grimmer fairytales.
Pavlo Hunka and Thomas Moser were Kaspar and Max. Jörg Hube was a fearsome Samiel, in the garb of an 18th century hunter. Others in the cast included Alfred Kuhn as Agathe's Forester-father, Kurt Moll, Dorothea Röschmann, and Martin Gantner.
Classics from the Bavarian State Ballet:
There was a time after World War II when German classical ballet and Modern Dance were in disarray. Classical ensembles had been decimated and demoralized. Often decommissioned.The modern innovations of Gert Palucca, Mary Wigmann, and Harald Kreutzberg had virtually gone into hiding. Fortunately, with the re-opening of theatres and the resumption of regular opera production in major German cities shortly after the war, ballet companies had to be rebuilt.
But opera-ballet is not the same as performing major ballets in repertory on a regular basis. A four-minute or six-minute balletic moment in an opera, then back to the showers. Troupes were lucky to be allowed a once-a-month Ballett-Abend, to show their skills.
But even while training intensively every day, they weren't dancing their repertory for audiences every day. That is also damaging to a dancer's morale and artistic ambitions.
Some state and city subsidy officials argued that there was no real public for ballet or dance in Germany. That was partly true because there were no important ensembles performing regularly.
British choreographer John Cranko's arrival in Stuttgart began to change all that. When the American choreographer John Neumeier began working with the Hamburg Opera, he soon attracted an eager public for his work—even in short opera ballets.
RHAPSODY IN BLUE--Judith Turos and Kirill Melnikov as Titania and Oberon in John Neumeier's bardic ballet. Photo: Courtesy of Bavarian State Ballet 1999. Today, the Hamburg Ballet has an enviable and thoroughly deserved international reputation. It has been celebrated at BAM—and it's time for a return engagement.
But Munich struggled along with its Ballet-Evenings and mediocre ensembles at its two opera-houses. These were composed of talented but inexperienced youngsters and older dancers, nearing the ends of less than glorious careers.
Fortunately for Munich and for classical and modern dance in that German Capital of the Arts, the late August Everding was determined that the city have a first-class ensemble.
When he was Intendant of the Hamburg Opera, he was the director who had the vision and who made it possible for John Neumeier to create the Hamburg Ballet.
As Staats-Intendant of Bavarian State Theatres, he was able to help Konstanze Vernon build a major company—with an interesting repertory—in Munich. He was also able to save and restore the monumental Jugendstil Prince-Regent Theatre—clearly inspired by Wagner's designs for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus—as a permanent home for the State Ballet.
During the Summer Festival of 1999, however, it was being used by both of the city's opera ensembles. So the Ballet was given the magnificent stage of the National Theatre. The handsome and noble decor of the proscenium and auditorium makes a grand frame for traditional ballet in the grand style.
Konstanze Vernon was a "tough act to follow"—and she was apparently a strict disciplinarian and most demanding choreographer. [Who wants sloppy dancers anyway?] But she has a worthy successor in Ivan Liska, who has made the company even stronger and more varied.
Gliding Gracefully Along: Swan Lake
This Munich production is beautiful to behold, frozen for a moment, or in elegant motion. Ray Barra's choreography and staging is based on Petipa and Ivanov.No trendy updatings such as male cygnets here. The swan-ballet is danced as a legend, a court entertainment. The dramatic line remains clear and strong.
Lisa-Maree Cullum is a lovely and thrilling Odette/Odile, with Norbert Graf as the malicious magician Rotbart. Oliver Wehe is the unfortunate Prince Siegfried, followed by Alen Bottaini as his loyal friend Benno.
Neumeier's Magical Ein Sommernachtstraum
John Neumeier has dedicated this neo-classical ballet of his creation to the memory of August Everding. This is much more than a gracious gesture. Professor Everding made Neumeier's astonishing emergence as a choreographer and founder of a major ballet ensemble possible in Hamburg. When it did not look possible in Germany or elsewhere.Neumeier's totally delightful balletic vision of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is now over a score of years old. It was even shown some time ago in Brooklyn at BAM in a gala Hamburg Ballet visit.
The ballet—danced to music by Mendelssohn, Ligeti, and "traditional mechanical music"—remains fresh and surprising as when it was first shown. At least that's the experience when it is performed by the Bavarian Ballet.
As with Neumeier's approach to long-established classical ballets—or almost clichéd scores—he gives a new human dimension to the characters and their relationships.
These are, of course, danced, unspoken, using the vocabulary of classical ballet—and some modern even acrobatic instances as well.
Neumeier's characters are able to express their deepest feelings and their shallowest needs with a visual effectiveness that can move audiences to tears or gales of laughter.
It's a truism that neither Modern Dance nor classical ballet can communicate the fine points of philosophy or ideology. But they can occasionally illustrate them with danced metaphors in human life.
Neumeier is able to do this for some of Shakespeare's deeper thoughts about reality and fantasy, about love and longing, about surfaces and interiors, about life and living.
Even in the Bard's comedy, the contrasts between the Fairy-World and the Court of Theseus—already in the realm of fantasy for Elizabethan audiences—encourage superficial responses as entertainment. As do the boisterous and often embarrassing adventures of the quartet of confused lovers in the Athenian Woods.
But there is an undercurrent regarding personal identity, life-roles, the nature of love, and, finally, noblesse oblige. Not to overlook some newly apparent appeals for fair treatment and recognition of women!
Neumeier is able to address all of these deftly and subtly through dance. Nor is he at a loss to deal with really low low-comedy.
The greatest cliché in modern performance of Shakespeare is the Mechanicals' Scene. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Bad Actors have bellowed and mugged their way through this pastiche. It takes really talented actors to make these amateur players richly human and tenderly farcical.
In Sommernachtstraum, Neumeier's Rustics are a total delight. In contrast to the more classical visions of the ballet, they tumble on stage with a colorful calliope, tooting 19th century barrel-organ opera melodies.
I've seen this scene in both Brooklyn and Hamburg, but seen again in Munich, the comedy was a fresh and lovable as ever. This, for me, is the best production of the scene, with or without words.
Vincent Loermans, as Bottom—or Zettel, der Weber—is a wonderful comic dancer. As are his fellows Marc Geifes, Thomas Paepcke, Stefan Moser, Jaroslav Soly, Oelg Makhov, and Peter Jolesh. Their Germanic names—for those who know them only in English—are Flaut, Squenz, Schlucker, Schnauz, Schnock, and Klaus.
Judith Turos and Kirill Melnikov danced the dual roles of Hippolyta and Theseus and Titania and Oberon. In Neumeier's choreography, they expressed very well the battle of the sexes, tempered by an essential, if unreasoned, affection.
Alen Bottaini was an acrobatic, energetic, mischievous Puck. The unfortunate and abused young Athenian women were strongly danced by Maria Eichwald and Elena Pankova. Norbert Graf and Patrick Teschner were the ardent suitors who defied Duke Theseus to win their loves.
André Presser conducted both ballets with varying degrees of vigor and restraint.
Wolfgang Oberender, spokesman for the State Ballet, notes that this work and other impressive Neumeier choreographies are now in the repertory of a number of European ensembles.
He suggests that Europeans respond differently to some choreographers—even to other Americans, such as William Forsythe, who have made careers in Europe—than do American audiences.
That may well be true, but this perception may also be affected by the fact that the broader American dance public really hasn't seen the range of Neumeier or Forsythe's work on a regular basis.
A gala visit to BAM is not enough. But artistic directors and impresarios—always justly worried about some conservative critics—often cannot afford to be too adventurous with their subscription-audiences or budgets.
An Everding Post Scriptum:
This past August, two of August Everding's sons—Christoph and Cornelius—made their debut in Berlin's Englisch-Garten. They are "Hobby-Musiker," with Cornelius dedicated to a law career and Christoph to graphic-design.Instead of opera-inspired songs, they are making popular music, with lyrics by Chris and melodies by both on piano and guitar.
Munich also has a famous English Garden, but the Bros. Everding avoided making their debut there.
While the Gärtnerplatz Renovates:
Stark Bohème at Prinzregenten-Theater
During a renovation of the stage of the Gärtnerplatz-Theater, the company had to perform on alternative stages. Moving to the much larger stage of the Prinzregenten-Theater, it was fortunate to have the expanse needed to give its new production of La Bohème impressive dimension.Considering that the four artist-comrades in Puccini's musical tear-jerker are freezing and starving in a tiny Parisian garret, stagings in major opera-houses often make the attic look gargantuan. Vast stages usually encourage designers to create chambers only slightly smaller than Grand Central Station.
Benedikt Herforth has provided the quartet with a big space, but it's clearly a cold, empty, factory-loft. It's not a cramped garret expanded ten times.
It's just the sort of space artists then and now—in Paris, London, or New York—would kill for. Upstage is a vast factory-window—great light for painting, but an enemy to heating in winter—with a glass door leading out to a catwalk over the roof. Just right for Mimi to pay a visit.
At one point, you can even see the Eiffel Tower in the distance.
The poverty of the artists shows to even greater advantage in this space, for it's obvious how few possessions they have. And how futile to burn a manuscript in the old stove: it can never heat this immense chamber, long since abandoned by some small-scale manufactury.
The larger theatre also permits a larger orchestra, for which director Helmut Matiasek was also grateful. [Matiasek used to be the Gärtnerplatz Intendant, but he now works as a free-lance. In summer 1998, he staged E. T. A. Hoffmann's Undine in the gardens of Schloss Rheinsberg, outside Berlin.]
The snow-scene—with the early-morning opening of the Hell-Gate of Paris—is also impressive in dimension and suggestive realism, with the workers and peasants shuffling into the city. This provides a visual contrapuntal background to the lovers' quarrels.
Few opera-houses can match the splendor—and supers—of the Met's Zeffirelli Bohème café scene. Matiasek and Herforth don't even try.
Yet their small-scale evocation of the high times at Café Momus is colorful, comical, even exciting. Musetta's outrageous behavior has a much bigger impact than when it is engulfed in scores of supers.
Miroslav Dvorsky and Sandra Moon are a visually and vocally attractive Rudolfo and Mimi. Their own youth, passion, and intensity make this story of a doomed—and often clichéd—love new again.
Florian Prey, Torsten Frisch, and Holger Ohlmann, as Rudolfo's friends, are rather special in these roles. Each has a distinctive personality—which makes itself manifest in voice and body-language. Too often, the costume does the acting, but not with this trio.
Christine Akre is a delightful, sensuous, vital Musetta. Indeed, all of these talents are names to remember. They won't always be singing in Munich's "second" opera-house.
Reinhard Schwarz conducted. He was luckier than Herbert Mogg, who was to have conducted the world premiere of his own opera at the Prinzregenten-Theater. This is a "burlesque operetta," as Mogg styles it, titled Das Mädchen vom Rialto.
The tremendous problems of setting-up and striking the scenery for Achim Freyer's new Staatsoper staging of L'Orfeo on the same stage the evening before forced a cancellation.
The new season at the Gärtnerplatz will feature premieres of new productions of Kiss Me, Kate, Porgy und Bess, The Rake's Progress—or Die Karriere des Tom Rakewell, Mignon, Lustige Witwe, and Don Giovanni.
Musical Munich/Dramatic Munich
Part II: Drama & Comedy
Classics at the Kammerspiele:
The dynamic and imaginative Intendant of the Kammerspiele, Dieter Dorn, will soon be leaving. He's being replaced by Frank Baumbauer, who is now the Theatre Advisor to Intendant Gerard Mortier of the Salzburg Festival.It seems a shame that Munich did not ask Dorn to stay on until the opening of the new theatre-complex he worked so long and effectively to achieve. Fortunately, his many unconventional and outstanding stagings in Munich will not be soon forgotten.
Nor his work in opera. His Fliegende Holländer at the Bayreuth Festival is a classic of Post-Modernism. It has been so admired that it was revived this past summer in Bayreuth.
Although the Kammerspiele is only a City Theatre—not a State Theatre, like the nearby Residenz-Theater—it has an illustrious history and a current reputation that far outweigh those of many state-subsidized German theatres.
Theatre-history was being made in its Jugendstil playhouse long before Dieter Dorn. But he has raised the stakes in innovation, imagination, and excellence.
He has also built an outstanding acting ensemble, along with able technical and administrative staffs. His fellow-directors and designers are all expert. None more so than the gifted designer Jürgen Rose, who gives Dorn's productions very special qualities which make them even more memorable.
Dorn and Rose are scheduled to make a team debut at the Met this season with a new Tristan und Isolde.
This past summer, the Kammerspiele programming included some impressive productions of the classics, balanced by the moderns. Euripides' Hecuba, Shakespeare's Cymbeline, Lessing's Nathan the Wise, Hebbel's Maria Magdalena, and Kleist's Prinz von Homburg, plus his Amphitryon. With Goethe's Urfaust, this makes make a fairly impressive classic rep for the month of July.
And those were played only in the main theatre. This roster doesn't include shows on view in the Workshop.
Other recent productions include Appearances Are Deceiving, by Austria's bitter satirist, the late Thomas Bernhard. Theresia Walser's King Kongs Töchter had its German premiere on its stage.
And George Ringsgwandl wrote, composed, staged, designed, and starred in the Rock Musical, Ludwig II—The Complete Truth. This was a world premiere, following his earlier musical success at the Kammerspiele with Gas-Station of the Damned.
For Goethe's 250th Birthday:
The Urfaust as an Elegant Ceremony
In its fragmentary form, Goethe's Urfaust has long been of primary interest to theatre-people as a preparation for his masterpiece, Faust, Parts I & II. It has seldom been given a major staging. Certainly not in the New World.In the 1980s—when Brecht's Berliner Ensemble was still "a family-business"—the BE mounted a fantastic and disturbing production, replete with spiky-winged demonic angels. It was truly scary—and a demonstration of theology and philosophy in action at the same time.
These heirs of Bertolt Brecht did so love to instruct their audiences, even as they entertained them.
For the Residenz, director Thomas Bischoff avoided Satanic & Halloween images. But he did achieve his own kind of Alienation Effect.
On a simply stylized stage, dominated by an elevated platform—complete with grand-piano and musical accompaniment, there was a cylinder for a well and some small iron cot-beds. His players appeared in long robes in shades of dark red or maroon. These had touches of the medieval in some details.
The effect was rather like the enactment of a religious ritual, or even a strange kind of Passion Play—though some person-to-person confrontations had the immediacy of real clashes of temperament.
It's interesting to note that Bischoff was thinking about presentations of Early Christian myths regarding God's creation of Lucifer when he began working with actors and text. Some of these survive in Mystery Play Cycles still performed.
The fragmentary nature of the text, he has said, permitted him a great deal of leeway for interpretation, without making drastic changes. He has added the Prologue to Goethe's Faust I, however.
Bischoff's idea in his Urfaust is that God, the Tri-Unitarian, has created a fourth Being, who has his own autonomy and power. When God makes a [Faustian] wager with the Devil—He does this first in Job—He is in danger of losing because of Lucifer/Mephistopheles' powers.
The only way He can save Himself, Bischoff suggests, is to contend as a man. And that man is Faust, not the Christ. He had already incarnated as Jesus, some 1400 years before Dr. Johann Faustus got tenure at Wittenberg University.
Faustus' battle with the Devil is transformed from a struggle to win the wager to an epic fight to save God Himself, for Faust's own existence is inextricably bound to God's survival.
As Faust, Jens Harzer has a vulnerable, almost effete, manner. But his appearance also somewhat reflects that of the much more forceful, focused Mephistopheles of Michael von Aud.
The long robes—even with suggestions and details of medieval garb—do "distance" the production and elevate its essential arguments to a more metaphoric level. It's not a Gothic horror-story anymore. But it may still be a Moral Message not to mess with Evil, however.
A Legend Playwrights Love:
Amphitryon Retold by Kleist & Dorn
Heinrich von Kleist had a very good model for his lusty version of the ancient Amphitryon myth. He based his comedy of mistaken identities on a version by Molière. In modern times, no less a satiric talent than Jean Giraudoux gave the story his special intellectual spin.It inspired an English version by S. N. Behrman. This was a highlight of the Broadway season back in 1938. The adaptation featured matinee-idol Alfred Lunt as Jupiter and comedian Richard Whorf as Mercury. It was appropriately titled Amphitryon 38.
It was suggested that the number referred to the tally of Amphitryon plays by that time, not to the year of the premiere.
Kleist was writing in a far different time than Behrman, though the premiere of his less sophisticated comedy was long delayed. As with his comedy of municipal hypocrisy, The Broken Jug, Kleist knew well how to build a lively cultural amusement on a foundation of philosophical thought.
And director Dieter Dorn has staged this semi-modern classic with a good balance of knockabout comedy and darker interior speculation—the latter largely by inference.
The beautiful Alkmene [Sibylle Canonica] has been longing for the victorious return from the wars of her handsome, valorous husband, Amphitryon [Jens Harzer].
Unfortunately for this passionate couple—distance has obviously led enchantment—up on Mount Olympus, Jupiter's roving eye has caught a glimpse of Alkmene. Long since bored with Juno, he performs one of his periodic transformations.
This time, not into a Bull, a Swan, or even a Shower of Gold. Jupiter [Michael Maertens] takes on the likeness of Amphitryon. And his servant in such intrigues, Mercury [Oliver Nägele] turns himself into the low-comedy servant Sosias.
Naturally, Alkmene is overjoyed at her supposed husband's return. But her joy knows no bounds at his new-found Olympian ardor.
When the real Amphitryon and Sosias finally arrive, their rage, frustration, and bafflement at being shut out of the house is the stuff of both high and low comedy.
Imagine being told you are an imposter: that the real men have already come home and are more than fulfilling their conjugal duties.
Sosias is especially outraged—and confounded—when confronted with his double.
Shakespeare also used the device of double look-alikes in The Comedy of Errors. In that play, however, both pairs are identical twins—not counterfeit copies. The Bard constructed his comedy in such a way that both sets of twins can be played by the same two actors.
Using masks in the Greek and Roman theatre, the problems of resemblances and casting were minimal. But in the Renaissance and later, when such dramas required confrontation of look-alikes, other strategies have had to be employed.
Identical costumes, gestures, and vocal patterns have often served well. As they do very well in the Kammerspiele production, designed by Jürgen Rose.
But Dorn also cast very cleverly: his Jupiter and Amphitryon—especially in Rose's handsome robes—look rather similar.
The production—set against Rose's simple columned classic facade—is a rich comedy treat in a theatre which often dives deep into the well of loneliness and despair.
But even in this boisterous production—including entrances through the audience—there is Kleist's disquieting undercurrent, questioning personal identity. What defines it? Especially for others: Outward appearance? Behavior? Speech? Opinions? Values?
What makes us distinctively us? Or can someone else don our identities?
A Residenz for the Classics:
As the State Theatre of Bavaria, Munich's Residenz-Theater is not about to stand idly by while Dieter Dorn and the City Theatre explore the great classics of the stage with such verve and inventiveness.Last July, the Residenz programmed some worthy challenges to its sister on the Maximilianstrasse. It parried the Kammerspiele's Shakespeare with Hamlet.
But it was out-Kleisted by its rival: it had only Penthesilea to show. Goethe was represented with Clavigo. And the seldom-staged Don Juan und Faust of Christian Grabbe was certainly a novelty.
Garcia Lorca's Doña Rosita, Brecht's Dreigroschenoper, and Genet's The Maids made an interesting trio of modern classics. Lighter fare was provided by Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy and Trevor Griffiths' Comedians.
Terrence McNally's Meisterklasse—an impressive production, but softer, gentler than on Broadway—continued in the repertory.
I wish I could have seen Albert Ostermaier's new stage satire. It explores the current confusion between appearance and reality: Was ist Schein, was ist Sein?
It is titled The Making Of. B.—Movie. That is its actual German name. Ostermeier is concerned with a Society that now presents itself as a Show of Stars and Starlets. With heroes who are only playing themselves as roles—often scripted by others, how seriously should we take this? When is the play over, and when do things get real?
And there were other novelties at the Residenz-Theater in July. But Tennessee Williams did better than McNally, Lorca, Kleist, and Shakespeare. He had two plays on view. One was Die tätowierte Rose; the other, Streetcar.
Rednecks at the Residenz-Theater:
Herr Tennessee's Streetcar Named Sehnsucht
Tennessee Williams' Endstation Sehnsucht seems to have worldwide appeal. There are people everywhere who can identify with Stella and Stanley.There are certainly are unhappy unfortunates who could see themselves in Mitch and Blanche. There are Losers everywhere. Fortunately for most of them, they aren't yet aware that they are losers.
For those on the upper levels of the social and economic Pyramid, Stan and Stella are also losers. Poker Nights and Getting Those Colored Lights Going will wear out in time.
The new production of Streetcar at the Residenz is very harsh and contemporary. It's not seen through the haze of Jo Mielziner's Broadway scrims and amber lighting.
If anything, the premiere Broadway production was the theatrical equivalent of Blanche's obsessive hiding the bare lightbulb with the colored lantern.
Despite appearances of excessive prosperity—especially in Munich—Germany now has an unemployment rate over 15 percent. The luxury boutiques which line the Max-strasse near the major theatres are the same which flank Madison Avenue in Manhattan. But the Munich prices are higher.
There are plenty of working-class people, however, who aren't shopping in Prada. Or buying tickets to the State Theatres.
So this vintage Williams tragedy about terminal desperation has not aged. And it can speak very directly to those who are ready to listen.
Nonetheless, director/designer Klaus Emmerich has made a surreal effort to distance this drama from European cares and chaos by projecting yards of film-footage of Americana.
If these images were focused on sections of New Orleans, they might make some sense as background milieu.
But hectic footage of Las Vegas neon, casino theme-parks, and various gambling saloons—which I had myself photographed only weeks before going to Munich—didn't have any resonance.
Unless Emmerich believes Las Vegas is an essential symbol of American Character and explains where Blanche, Stella, and Stanley went wrong?
Or did he just want a colorful cinematic kaleidoscope of hectic American Life?
Actually, this production could be taking place in a trailer in any shabby American trailer-court. Its major set-prop is a General Electric fridge.
This stands on a platform along with a simple wooden table and chairs. You could put all the set-pieces in a pickup and tour small Bavarian villages—which are nothing at all like American small-towns.
Stan and Stella aren't doing much better than the destitute Blanche. Their tacky bathroom seems more wretched than those in your basic mobile-home. When Stan pounds on the fiberboard door, the wall panel comes loose. That wasn't planned—the nail must have been loose, owing to rapid rep turnover.
Just outside the closet-sided bathroom is a plain porcelain sink on metal brackets. In America, janitors use these to soak mops. Blanche uses it for beauty-moments, with the colored lantern on the light-bulb above a mirror over the sink.
So starkly and contemporarily conceived, this drama could be happening almost anywhere in the United States. And—with some mental adjustments—many places in Western and Central Europe.
It's almost impossible to do an American Southern accent in German. South German isn't the same. So the ensemble plays the text in a powerful, straightforward manner.
Barbara Melzl is very good as Blanche—not the faded violet of Vivian Leigh, but a frantic, hectic woman caught in a modern time-warp and unable to adjust to her circumstances. At times, she is as annoying to spectators as she is to Stanley and as embarrassing as to Stella.
Oliver Stokowski is a good working-class Stanley, but no Brando or Anthony Quinn. Susanne Schroeder's Stella is very sympathetic, Timo Dierkes' Mitch is a bit self-consciously stagey.
It was good to have seen this American classic performed with such passion and understanding by the Munich players.
Sidewalk Café at Theater der Jugend:
Zorbas Teaches the Little Seagull To Fly!
The nearby Augustiner Beer-Garden loaned some of its metal folding-chairs and tables to Munich's adventurous Theatre for Youths recently. The very special occasion was the world premiere of a charming new play for all ages of the young in heart.Based on the novel by Luis Sepulveda, the full German title of the comedy is: Wie Kater Zorbas der Kleine Möwe das Fliegen Beibrachte.
No, this isn't Zorba the Greek. Zorbas the Cat is a free spirit who lives up on a balcony of a house in Hamburg. His lofty perch overlooks the harbor and the lively street-scene below.
Kids, teachers, parents, and other adults in the audience sat at the Augustiner tables on either side of a gangway-street which stretched the length of the black-box theatre. The only things missing to make this a real Hamburg Harbor scene were foaming steins of beer.
At one end of this avenue stood Zorbas' house. At the other, on the conventional stage, were some odd pieces of furniture—including a magical wardrobe—and some raffish dockside characters.
Hamburg's harbor area—like those of any great city known for shipping—also has some desperate types as well. Scoundrels, thieves, con-men, drug-pushers, and streetwalkers.
As this is primarily a theater for kids and teens, the talented director George Podt and his equally imaginative designer Peer Boysen didn't offer audiences a really edgy Slice-of-Life.
There was a streetwalker, but only one, and a rascally Bad Guy. But they sang along with the rest, and the villain did not succeed in his dire plans. He even got a dousing in the harbor!
Actually, though these types looked human, it was understood that they were also harbor cats. There was also the Rat-King and the Chimpanze Matias.
As for the warm-hearted but fretful Zorbas—concerned about oil-drenched seagulls dying—he doesn't know what to do when a large egg deposited on his balcony actually hatches.
He becomes the surrogate Mother/Father of the cute little puppet-bird. But can he teach it to fly and live its proper bird-life?
Little kids in the audience were literally on the edges of their seats—and even sometimes standing up—to warn Zorbas of danger. Or shout encouragement. In this mood, it's not hard to get them to sing along, when needed.
Every festival summer, I make a point of visiting the Theater der Jugend in its handsome Post-Modernist makeover of an historic building on Elizabeth-Platz, called jokingly the Schau-Burg, after Amsterdam's famous concert-house.
Not only is its youthful—but professional—ensemble a treat to watch, but its unusual plays are not the soppy fare of most children's theatre.
Some dramas are quite serious, dealing frankly with problems lots of youngsters do not want to discuss with their parents. Or even their teachers.
Even great & famous classics can get a new look that makes them both interesting and accessible to kids and teens. Medea's dead children—murdered by her own hand—ask her why she did it, for instance.
Each show has its own distinctive poster, but they are all in a wonderfully cartoonish style that instantly proclaims them Theater der Jugend designs.
Folded into rectangles—with cast, tech staff, and background info printed on their versos—they make handsome souvenir programs. And you can pin them up on your bedroom wall afterward! Or on the school bulletin-board. [Loney]
Copyright © Glenn Loney 1999. No re-publication or broadcast use without proper credit of authorship. Suggested credit line: "Glenn Loney, New York Theatre Wire." Reproduction rights please contact: jslaff@nytheatre-wire.com.
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