2023-07-11 03:12:57
With Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise”, the Salzburg Festival has included a piece in its program this year that generations of high school students have read as compulsory reading. In the production on the Pernerinsel in Hallein, the characters drawn by the author should blur, with which director and stage designer Ulrich Rasche wants to draw attention to the language, he explained to the media in Salzburg. It premieres on July 28th.
According to dramaturge Sebastian Huber, the play’s reputation with its famous ring parable is “mixed” today. Somehow the content is naïve with its almost fairytale, lovely and overconstructed ending, because history has taught us otherwise. And so he sees in the parable not only a metaphor, but also a demand for more tolerance, whereby tolerance can only be a first step towards recognition.
The intention to divert attention from the characters to the language is also evident in the female cast of the title character. Other figures are always presented with a chorus of three people. With this idea, the resolution (at the end) of the piece should also become visible, in which it turns out that many characters are no longer who they originally thought to be. Huber speaks of “fragile identities”.
The role of Nathan was taken over for a short time by the former paramour Valery Cheplanova. She stands in for Judith Engel, who had to cancel at short notice for health reasons. There was no time left to learn the text because she immediately got into rehearsals, but thanks to a personal prompter that wasn’t necessary either. She was surprised at how “strangely intimate” the interaction between the Pernerinsel Hall and Rasche’s installation on the stage seemed. “Text, movement and music, it all frames you if you let it.” And that leads to a deceleration, she can slowly think through her feelings and thoughts. This also requires the viewers, who must take them with them.
During the conversation, Rasche also praised the festival: “I’m impressed by everything that’s made available to you here, the working conditions are phenomenal.” As an example, he mentioned that he had never been able to work on a stage set for so long as he was doing now for “Nathan”.
(SERVICE: “Nathan the Wise”, dramatic poem in five acts by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing; new production by Ulrich Rasche; premiere at the Salzburg Festival on July 28, 2023 at 7.30 p.m. on the Pernerinsel in Hallein, 8 further performances until August 12 ; www.salzburgerfestspiele.at)
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