Komische Oper Berlin: A bit of fun must be – Tagesspiegel

inexplicable why this piece is not constantly available in the repertoires. Because “Der Vampyr” of 1795 born in Zittau composer Heinrich Marschner’s a really good, exciting piece of music theater, stylistically the link between the “Freischütz” and the “Flying Dutchman”, premiered in 1828 in Leipzig, ie seven years after Weber hunter Drama and 15 years before Wagner Captain tragedy
. These three works are the top in musical rain romance on German opera stages, which is dramatically even built best “Der Vampyr”. The correspondence to the “Wolf’s Glen scene” stands at the beginning: In the forest wilderness meets at midnight vampire Assembly. Under the condition that he kills three maidens, within 24 hours, Lord Ruthven is given an extension of earthly life by one year. This sets the title role under a time pressure, which guarantees up to the finals for constantly increasing tension
Over the two acts will then be both heard the model for the “Senta ballad” -. A vorgesungene from soprano description of seduction tactics the vampire – and the template for the entrance aria of the Dutchman. It portrays Ruthven, as he was as a punishment for his sins for bloodsuckers and – unintentionally -. Had to kill his family members, up to the youngest daughter, who promised with religious views to pray for him as he bit her in the neck

evil breaks with power into the idyll of Biedermeier

It is the clash of the underworld and idyllic Biedermeier that both Marschner “Vampyr” as well as his “Hans Heiling” the voltage is, the Christian Thielemann conducted in 2001 at the Deutsche Oper. The serene female choirs, village dances and wedding hymns create an atmosphere this country-moral naivete, in which the otherness breaks with power. Grandiose example the scene where Lord Ruthven was severely wounded by the father of his first victim, and then his faithful servant Edgar asks to lay it face down on a rock that the moon shines in his face. Only by the pale light that is he can come to new forces. Sadly this suggestive moment in the Komische Oper is now not to experience. Because the director Antú Romero Nunes has not only painted for his “Vampyr” production all dialogues, but also one-third of Marschner’s music. The new version, which he has with the head dramaturge of the house, Ulrich Lenz, elaborated, makes the original three hours Duration nonstop 90 minutes. The structure of the piece is completely smashed, many numbers are only alluded. The overture, showing off in Marschner how well he can conjure up musical agitation, the creative team appeared to match dispensable and dive only shred as in later scenes.

For was the composer Johannes Hofmann additional sound material commissioned. Contemporary Orchestra snippets, manufactured according to established conventions for soundtrack production to serve as Klangkitt this collage. Because horror films and splatter movies are the benchmarks of the director, who is known for his radical speech theater deconstructions and they first attempt at music theater here. “I’m interested,” he says in the program, “whether and how it is possible to bring the audience an opera performance to shudder by telling the story with a certain breathlessness.”

At the first shock effect in the hall laughed

So, how does he do it here, anyway. Because people are laughing at the first shock effect, as the vampire, a spectator from the front row attacks, it grinds the hair on the stage, you only deduct the facial skin and bloody intestines drags from her abdomen. No gentleman is the Lord here, no elegant seducer who magically attracts its victims with its cosmopolitan nature. Heinrich Marschner has his Ruthven represented musically two-faced, not only as a fearsome monster, but just as charming revenant Don Giovanni. In Nunes, he’s just a figure of fun, a nasty, bodily-white painted Made with more than long-Hitler apex. The also later when he throws a jacket, barely able to adjust.

And it also does not have to. Because all are zombies here. The devotedly limping, tottering and teeth bared Chorsoloists but also the protagonists with the seemingly pure souls are all expired long hell, as evidenced in the bloody showdown.

As a victim, the opera will end itself back, ridiculed, verjuxt, verblödelt. Attached to the track and, what is worse, made the stuffing. Because the audience leaves this performance in the belief that this is a ridiculously stale stage elaborate in Marschner’s “Vampyr” to a footnote in music history, irrelevant and rightly forgotten.

zurechtgekalauert to Grusical, loses the piece its power

And this is the last thing director Barrie Kosky may have wanted. Because it was he who set the piece – out of the conviction that the repertoire archaeological worth. But why did not he hired a director who is familiar with the genre? The can measure about which key position “Der Vampyr” in the context of German comic opera in the first third of the 19th century occupies. And the question to the audience only times only stringently tells the story, in the spirit of emergence time out with their conscious chiaroscuro contrasts.

As “Der Freischütz” and “The Flying Dutchman” is also ” Der Vampyr “a piece that can shake, because it looks to psychological abysses while courting pity on a gloomy hero. If it makes Antú Romero Nunes farce because he lacks the intellectual history horizon, he downplayed it. And taking the singers the chance to reach the audience emotionally. As puppets have the “good” here move, after all, in interesting costumes of Annabelle Witt. Alone with Jens Larsen, his daughter sold off as greedy father to Lord Ruthven, it works. The two lovers but may not become opponents of the title character, not Nicole Chevalier as püppchen exemplary Lady Malwina, not Zoltan Nyari, who as her fiance especially loud is rather lyrical. And certainly not Maria Fiselier (Emmy) and Ivan Tursic (George), the – why? – Sometime abruptly pushing as “audience” from the hall to the stage

Heiko Trinsinger capable as a vampire with his powerful baritone to sing quite well attractive cantilenas -. Any vocal differentiation but lost in the scenic bombshells. Just as little attention is left to listen to the eviscerated score which converts the Orchestra of the Komische Oper in harsh tones, guided without Citadels by conductor Antony Hermus – if it is not just a dagger hurls the vampire on dress shirt and it then my harmonica revived. Much red color flowing – but this Grusical remains bloodless

Again on 26 3 and 3, 17 and 23.4

..