Michael Kuhn / Vélemények

Applause fountains after each dance number and loud ovations at the end. The audience at the premiere liked the semi- to full-stage installation of Paul Abraham's comedy operetta "Märchen im Grand-Hotel", in which the version of the Komische Oper Berlin was used at the Dresden State Operetta: something pleasing for the eyes and ears ended the coronal Lent in the Mitte power plant. In terms of dance and orchestra, the evening had a remarkable format. Gero Wendorff as the Austrian Prince Andreas Stephan outshone everything with that combination of personality and skill that is part of the DNA of contemporary operetta.It's late autumn in Infanta Isabella's money box, but despite the hardship and hardship, this autumn is just barely showing itself in mild colors. The service team of the grand hotel in Cannes, decked out in smart green, hovers around the emigrated sovereignty like leaves in free fall. According to the libretto, midsummer is hot and tempting for princely mating. But from that overheating caused by what is called "emotional sensation" here, hardly anything vibrates in the auditorium, which by no means seems empty. “Distance” is the word of the times. Mouth and respiratory protection are part of the equipment on flights from Broadway to the Côte d'Azur. At least the change from the damsat of the princely suite to the iron-hard star catwalks of Hollywood takes place without bruises for the blue blood. If Paul Abraham didn't make a compositional difference between the social spheres, then that doesn't need to be reflected on the scene either, director Cornelia Poppe must have thought. That's why you see little of the swan song to an era that Paul Abraham, Albert Grünwald and Fritz Löhner-Beda foamed up in and for Vienna in 1934 - i.e. after the seizure of power - as a self-deceptively exaggerated mixture of nobility, business and fashion. The neglect of this bitter work background blossoms into a lively show in the optimally used spatial conditions of the state operetta. On the huge proscenium there is dancing, tap-tapping (perfectly supervised by Alexei C. Bernard), dialogue and champagne. However, drinking from a goblet is taboo for the princess and the supposed waiter, not because of the difference in status, but because of hygiene regulations. On the main stage, the orchestra is enthroned in front of the lovingly detailed painted prospect of the entrance hall - as a hotel band with a full staff, it is even scenically required with applauding, clicking and sighing. Such jokes fit better than the contrast blur between the prologue and epilogue to the two main acts. The shifts in motor skills between the office of film magnate Sam Makintosh (Bryan Rothfuss), who is under pressure from the pressure of competition, and the Grand Hotel, where the motor skills of modern times pause, are only peripheral. Abraham's melodies and America-loving sounds celebrate once again everything that was loved in the late Weimar Republic and forbidden in the dark years up to 1945. "Märchen im Grand-Hotel" is the operetta discovery of the hour in a short production sequence (last Meiningen, Hanover, Hamburg), because it shows the death of old privileges and the social acceleration as in a burning mirror with a spicy joke: Everything like today, only without social media. Abraham's rhythmic hodgepodge seems like the fleet-footed, "Distance" remains the concept word of the evening until Infanta Isabella of Spain and Prince Andreas Stephan of Austria break their engagement, play themselves in a feature film to restructure their accounts and find other happiness alongside new partners from the financially strong entrepreneurial nobility. A handicap of this rehearsal is that Laila Salome Fischer as the mastermind Marylou, who repeatedly wears the star diadem of the (economic) statue of liberty, seems to freeze next to the motoric sovereign elegance. In addition, Marcus Günzel, as an archetype, runs normative quota travesty for several princesses who understand. Otherwise: women, cocktails, flirt! The prince rags without class-specific reservations with femininities who are demure by day and willing by night. With the rare combination of a fine, striking tenor and talented dancer, Gero Wendorff has that passion and lightness that only makes Abraham's songs ironic. In the central role of the hotel heir, Andreas Sauerzapf, who is supposed to acquire the spurs to managerial competence incognito as a waiter, is germ-free when digging for Infanta Isabella and is therefore ideally corona-compatible. Next to him, Beate Korntner shows the successfully depersonalized result of aristocratic training. With somnambulistic delicacy, she floats through the emotional arid zone of the Dresden Grand Hotel. Where there is little erotic crackling of sparks, there is no passionate conflagration! Director Cornelia Poppe agreed with choreographer Mandy Garbrecht and set designer Esther Dandani that they would at least turn a blind eye to all the gender clichés that Abraham, Grünwald and Löhner-Beda placed somewhere between irony and confirmation. In the remaining smoothness of economic and emotional mechanics, music is the main trump card next to the happy ending at any price. This time the orchestra and the ballet on site always have the fine capacities for subtle shades between 'straight' and 'queer'. The vocal quartet (Friedemann Condé, Georg Güldner, Michael Kuhn, Andreas Pester) favors more aseptic musicality than dry wit. Nevertheless, Peter Christian Feigel mills, saws, drills and knocks Abraham's many catchy tunes into all auditory canals with the sound body he is very familiar with.

Without ifs and buts: what's going on on stage is terrific! […] Olivia Delauré is the new Eliza from Dresden, Axel Köhler is Professor Higgins, plus a large ensemble with many roles, great dialogues for the main actors, musically a succession of long-running hits, almost everything to sing along to and clap along to, that’s where we are but again entirely in the Dresden State Operetta. Of course, a great merit of the choreographer Radek Stopka and the Ballet of the State Operetta in the dance and movement astonishingly successful interaction with the choir and the large ensemble. And the musical side of this performance is more than just a little piece of happiness with Christian Garbosnik conducting the orchestra of the state operetta and the choir in so many facets in the rehearsal by Thomas Runge. Garbosnik is a man of speed. It's unbelievable how he starts in the prelude, but then also finds his way to sensitive flattering melodies. The singers all find their individual tone of the genre, no falls into clichés, the musicality is of dance-like power.