David Todd / Rezensionen

The young, Serbian-Italian director Mario Pavle del Monaco, son of the Serbian mezzo-soprano Dragana del Monaco and grandson of the famous tenor Mario del Monaco, had no ambition to update the long overinterpreted Romeo and Juliet tragedy or to charge it politically. Perhaps that was also due to the difficult conditions in which this production was created. And so he left it at showing an aggressive gang wasting their lives between rum bottles and bullets. Romeo isn't exactly popular either, but is quick to bring a hand grenade. And Julia does not accept the victim role without complaint, but tolerantly.

Since the theater is playing in an alternative location, the Theaterfabrik Blaue Halle, in the district of Dürrbachau anyway, the technical possibilities for the stage are limited. Director Nina Russi is satisfied with two storage containers that are moved, opened and closed again in front of a dark background. In these, next to and in front of it, the action takes place around the protagonist Emilia Marty, the over 300-year-old singer, whose secret the whole opera revolves around. As a child, her father, Emperor Rudolf II's personal physician, tested an elixir on her that keeps people alive for 300 years. Since then she has lived under different names, always with the initials EM. Now, however, in order to regain possession of the recipe for the elixir, she has to help solve a complicated inheritance dispute without revealing her past.

What is this piece? "The Magic Flute" is Mozart's last opera. It was first performed in 1791 and has been a world hit ever since – with a confused plot but an incredible number of wonderful melodies. why is it so famous Probably no other opera radiates so much humanity and love. The piece works again and again, even in the wildest productions. The message: There is always hope in life. How is the Würzburg new production? Fairytale, human and musically very successful. Director Andreas Wiedermann also manages to break two decisive breaks in the plot ..

The work formed the first part of a double evening with which the Würzburg Mainfranken Theater started its new season. Because the main building in the city center is still being renovated, one is currently playing a little outside, in the Blaue Halle theater factory, which a local thermal box company, which has been particularly flourishing since the outbreak of the pandemic, is making available to the theater. Of course, there is no stage machinery there, but the orchestra pit and the uniform stage design, which in this production is dominated by a large wall painting with Cupid and Lustknaben in a kitschy baroque style, have a considerable width (design: Pascal Seibicke ).