Frederic Mörth / Recensioni

Artistic director Uwe Eric Laufenberg places his production of Verdi's Rigoletto in the present. It is a gloomy, sex-oriented male society living out its excesses. In order for the viewer to understand this, there is plenty of opportunity in the first picture to see latex and patent-leather boots worn by various women, which then function as furniture incarnate, eg as a chair or table. Aha! Like all gentlemen, Rigoletto wears black, no fool's costume and is not (as the libretto puts it) misshapen. In return, he is allowed to carry around a clown doll as a second ego at all times. In his demeanor and body language, this Rigoletto looks more like a Mafiosi or a prizefighter. Apparently, this clown puppet makes the courtiers want one too. And behold, in the second act, this wish comes true: every courtier wears a clown's head in front of his own genitals.... Oh yes…! The duke, a somewhat sleazy dislike, rips his shirt off from sheer lust and then, half-naked, smashes his cabaletta after Gilda was presented to him as sex prey on a stage. Here, too, the viewer gets "interpretations - tutoring", so Gilda is exposed in front of a large phallic sculpture. Let's go to Herzog's shepherd's hour... oh my goodness! There are plenty of scenic gaps between the characters. Again and again the protagonists are allowed to throw clothes, flowers on the floor or knock over chairs. Finally "Action"... but that's about it! Plate externals! Contract killer Sparafucile lives in a run-down trailer next to a garbage dump with his sister Maddalena. Everything is pretty shabby and "garnished" by a few scantily clad hustlers, who perform mischievous theater with their umbrellas(!) when the duke starts his hit song "La donna e mobile". Gilda is put in the garbage can after the murder. But she didn't seem to be injured too badly, since she was able to undress in the bin and then go off in her light-colored slip. What? Right, Gilda doesn't die in this "interpretation"...she just blows off! t's a tragedy, how little Laufenberg has to say about this work and what's more, apart from a stew of common director's theater antics, he doesn't bring anything enlightening to the stage! So once again a scenically overloaded pseudo-theatre of meaning with stale attempts at provocation that never touches the viewer. A Rigoletto for the bin! The ugly, nonsensical stage design comes from Gisbert Jäkel and the less vivid costumes from Andrea Schmidt-Futterer . Here, too, there is no correspondence to the intended stage action, but pure sadness. Also musically the level was rather mixed. There were unusually often problems with intonation in the three main parts. Cristina Pasaroiu was Gilda and convinced with a very good performance, although in my opinion she has outgrown this subject in the meantime. It certainly masters the highs, although the coloratura didn't always appear precise and trills weren't clearly realized. As a character, she sometimes seemed overexcited and then again badly chilled. In the title role, Vladislav Sulimsky acted with an impressively robust, expansive baritone, who felt most at home in fortissimo. Persistent in the demanding role, he pulled out all the vocal stops to give his Rigoletto intensive vocal space. Very angry and short-tempered, he belted out his "Cortigiani" like there was no tomorrow. Regrettable that the nuances receded far too clearly into the background. His sometimes slurred Italian, freed from consonants, was also irritating