Mirrored, interlaced, misaligned

A strange text, strange music, strange staging, altogether a strange construct full of breaks. That could be interesting! This musical theater with the title Farewell, have a good trip.

At first, however, you are at a loss as to what to expect. First of all, there is this dramatic poem by Gertrud Leutenegger from 1980, which speaks of a self that awakens in a coffin and apparently exists in several doubles, as an undead woman (Leila Pfister), mother and whore (Meret Roth), faun monkey and Great Queen (Eveline Inès Bill). Alongside them appear a trio of elders (Madeleine Merz, Florian Glaus, Arion Rudari), who perish one after the other, and finally the pair of friends from the Sumerian epic, Gilgamesh (Flurin Caduff) and Enkidu (Daniel Camille Bentz) from the city of Uruk. However, the roles are not always so clearly assigned to the actors. All in all, it is rather raw and archaic material, but the ancient Mesopotamian story is interspersed with anachronisms. Gilgamesh survives a car accident, for example. A complex, layered story. How do you set that to music?

Martin Derungs' composition is not so mirrored, but rather sparse and broken up in its flow. After a short phrase, the voices often switch back to speaking, which in turn remains graded in color between call, chant and recitation. A strong emphasis is definitely perceptible, but it can constantly break off. Sometimes the voices are completely alone, then they are only followed by thinned-out monophonic tone sequences: A few flute notes, a mandolin tremolo, some viola, accordion or glass harmonica, as the case may be. These are selected sounds that fit together. As a result, the text remains fairly easy to understand. On the other hand, it is not always easy for the eleven-piece ensemble under the direction of Marc Kissóczy to immediately hit the right note between the long pauses and create stable lines.

There are few violent tempo fluctuations, everything follows a similarly calm course. Derungs has never been a composer of too many notes, and he has often made do with the fewest. Characteristic elements hardly emerge, this music is not made, not theatrical. Only two or three times does it swing up into a parodistic dance, and even then only just. Otherwise, allusions have to suffice: The bass drum mentioned in the text appears in the ensemble with a mallet on the snare drum. In this respect, the sparseness is consistent and stylish. A veritable opera povera. What kind of staging would suit this?

The stage and stage direction (both by Giulio Bernardi) are not simple, despite the necessarily limited resources, but rather convoluted and disguised: there is a high seat for the ego, next to it a wide sofa. As in the text and music, there is only occasional continuity in this performance. Like the text, the narrative seems mirrored, somewhat muddled, constantly broken up into several levels. Is this an epic or stage reality? It is a play with several faces. The elders appear behind large rod puppets, the singers put on masks and make-up, and passages are sung and spoken from the score in a quasi-concertante manner. They are joined by a mime who silently comments on their actions and occasionally directs them. The characters and constellations change without any recognizable pattern. Here, too, you are left somewhat alone. It was a fortunate idea that the narrator Dorothee Roth briefly introduces the individual scenes beforehand.

Why all this in this strange and enigmatic combination? How did the three artists communicate with each other? Do they feel understood? Or is it perhaps this heterogeneity that wants to "communicate"? I didn't really warm to it, rather impatiently, but I kept at it because someone was daring to do something different. But what?

It's also about love: "He who does not fear love is immortal", is one of the lines. And then there are these fade-ins, which gave the play its title: Farewell, have a good tripa song, one of the last of the Comedian Harmonists, who disbanded shortly afterwards in 1935 during the Third Reich. "Think back to me", it continues. As the program booklet announces, the song is the prelude to a journey into the underworld. Of course, reading the story in the context of National Socialism seems inconclusive. But a basic flavor is perhaps still perceptible, somehow gothic ...

The cast of the world premiere on November 6 and 7 at the Theater Rigiblick in Zurich.
Photo: zVg