What is Zeus, the father of the gods who has been transformed into a fly, more attracted to than the beautiful Eurydice whom he wanted to seduce in this form? From a dog debris, of course, that hellhound Cerberus left on the stage: The side effects of metamorphosis. A new “Orpheus in the Underworld” premiered at the Vienna Volksoper on Saturday evening. The British clowning duo Spymonkey staged Offenbach with a lot of slapstick.
The tragic Greek saga of Orpheus and Eurydice, set to music with great empathy for the lovers in other music theater works, becomes a farce in Jacques Offenbach: the couple hate each other, indulge in their affairs and if it weren’t for the “public opinion”, Orpheus would have the snake bite -The death of his wife has long been celebrated as a happy ending. But that’s how the journey to the gods, who are in turn very neurotic, begins, first on Olympus, then in Hades…where the kidnapped Eurydice is soon being pursued not only by the prince of the underworld, but also by the father of the gods himself.
Body comedy or “physical theatre” is the name of the art genre closely related to the British pantomime tradition, in which Toby Park and Aitor Basauri alias Spymonkey are at home. It has a lot to do with the craft of satirical operetta – so much that, despite the music theater debuts of the two directors, one might get the impression that the veterans were at work here. In the best – and in the less good sense: there is a lot of well-choreographed slapstick, nimble punch lines, rolling, flying, waving gimmicks, self-ironic breaks, animal dance numbers. At the same time there is also a certain sloppiness in the timing, a vagueness in the musical elaboration, a sluggishness in the crude jokes. Nobody would have thought that neo-director Lotte de Beer would bring out a piece of vintage folk opera with the pantomimic music theater newcomers.
It was the second Viennese Offenbach premiere in a week: just a few days earlier, Nikolaus Habjan had successfully turned “La Périchole” into a political cabaret at the Theater an der Wien, but here at “Orpheus” they are trying to create a parody of the parody. With the newly added background story, which lets the composer himself appear in order to confuse the Volksoper with the Staatsoper, to dig at Eurydice and to claim his place in his piece in various roles, at least a double bottom succeeds, but its added value is not fully revealed.
With a series of outrageously stupid ideas – from the pink “cops of love” who whistle the famous “Cancan”, to the messenger of the gods Mercury on the hoverboard to the famous fly scene – Park and Basauri in Julian Crouch’s stage design offer their audience many strong laughs , even if they fall short of their potential in terms of density and precision. Marco di Sapia is a wonderful Zeus, Daniel Kluge a strong Orpheus, Ruth Brauer-Kvam an impressively creaturely “public opinion”. As Eurydice, Hedwig Ritter fights her way through to the newly conceived feminist incendiary speech, while Hades boss Timothy Fallon struggles with the comprehensibility of the text as Pluto. Alexander Joel rowed across the Styx at the podium of the Volksoper Orchestra.
(SERVICE – “Orpheus in the Underworld” by Jacques Offenbach. Director: Spymonkey – Toby Park and Aitor Basauri, conductor: Alexander Joel, set and costumes: Julian Crouch. With Daniel Kluge, Hedwig Ritter, Ruth Brauer-Kvam, Timothy Fallon, Marci Di Sapia. The next dates on January 25, 28, February 1, 5, 8, 14. Vienna Volksoper. www.volksoper.at)
