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THE EMBALMER
TILT / A QUEDA DO CÉU
CAMILO CHAMÄLEON
THE BIG BAKERY ROBBERY
La philosophie dans le labyrinthe 2007/2006
WÄLT DER ZWISCHENFÄLLE 2005/2004
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FIRST NIGHT OF THE BIG BAKERY ROBBERY/LUCERNE, SATURDAY 24TH OF JANUARY, 09.00 P.M., FINAL APPLAUSE 5 MINUTES
ZENTRALSCHWEIZ AM SONNTAG, 27.01.2009
This is where even revolt is great fun
"The Big Bakery Robbery" is a comedy with music: The direction at Luzerner Theater developes a scenic cartoon out of these musical parodies.
Contemporary Opera as entertaining and amusing as TV? You would rarely hear so much laughter in the audience of a first night, as it happened in this case...
Foto: Tony Suter, T&T Fotografie
If directors give clear statements before a production's First Night, they really run a risk. That is exactly what Michael Scheidl did, when he affirms for his staging of "The Big Bkery Robbery", that it will be located between "fairy - tale and television-crime-thriller". Contemporary Opera as amusing as TV? Yesterday's First Night approved this statement to be true, after a cautious prelude, and removed more than one prejudice at once. You rarely have experienced such a frequency of laughter at a First Night of contemporary Opera.
Foto: Tony Suter, T&T Fotografie
That was owed - more and more during second act - to the superbe cast. When the corean singer Sumi Kittelberger storms - accompagnied by her husband (affectingly "bourgeoised": Hans - Jürg Rickenbacher) - a McDonald's branch in a tightly fitting leather - costume and using her furious soprano voice, it generates (with a wink) the power of an Asian action movie. And when the branch manager in his Mc-Uniform answers to this threat with a huge gun, with a volley of coloraturas - behaving like a looping robot (hilarious: Peter Kennel) - another prejudice is refuted: Art and popular genre cannot be mingled amusingly.
Lucerne Sinfony Orchestra conducted by Johannes Kalitzke mingles mysterious avantgarde with stereotypes of juvenile rebelions, from moony E-Guitar-sounds to agressive rap-rush. ...
In dialogue passages the existential dimension of this absurd game becomes almost penetrantly obvious...
Foto: Tony Suter, T&T Fotografie
This is a basic principle of this event, also in Japanese Misato Mochizuki's music. The Lucerne Symphony Orchestra conducted by Johannes Kalitzke, mixes mysterious avantgarde with stereotypes of juvenile rebellion, from dreamy E-guitarsounds to agressive rap-dynamics. And the use of music in a parodistically illustrating manner, dashes away another cliché: Whereas contemporary composers usually dismantle the chant, Mochizuki offers in musicalised dialogues a generous and open space to the libretto. "in this accelerated time we live in", the composer says about her first Opera, "there is no time left for singing anyway".
Foto: Tony Suter, T&T Fotografie
A motley masterstroke!
In dialogue - parts the existencial dimension of this absurd drama becomes almost penetrantly obvious. A man catches up on an anarchistic act, which he screwed up in his youth, in attacing a McDonald's- branch together with his wife, and which stands for his revolutionary dreams when he was young. In the conjugal bed and at the kitchen table he tells his her, how he and his comrade have been ripped of by a baker, when they tried to rob his bred: He offered bred for free just for listening to Wagner's music: The scene, that is installed as a flash-back gives the event its first hilarious climax with delightful Wagner - parodies (as baker: Boris Petronje).
Foto: Tony Suter, T&T Fotografie
The third potency of this motley but nevertheless solid opera - event, that is over after an hour, is the direction in itself: The stage of Nora Scheidl - suggesting narrowness and vastness at the same time - is a real masterstroke. And Michael Scheidl carries on these caricaturing traits to a dactylology, that is oriented on cartoon: It is not only the sophisticated drive through nocturnal Tokio that makes this event a literally animated opera-experience.
Urs Mattenberger
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