Komische Oper Berlin – Herbert Fritsch: Cheerful happiness in a nasty situation

“This isn’t funny” is written on the buttons that many of the Komische Oper’s staff have pinned to their lapels. Yes, it is almost impossible to attend a performance at the Komische Oper Berlin these days or even to write about one of its performances without thinking about the scandal that has threatened the existence of this indispensable institution of Berlin’s cultural life as a result of the recent cuts made by the senate on a rampage is vehemently endangered. The Komische Oper is expected to save nine percent during ongoing operations in 2025, which in itself is crazy. Even crazier is the construction stop on the renovation work at the main building on Behrenstrasse, which the CDU-SPD Senate has ordered for 2025 and 2026 – on September 19th, the Senator for Culture assured that there would be no construction stop and told the RBB that The renovation on Behrenstrasse will “continue to the agreed extent”. Two months later there is no more talk of it. So what does the Senator for Culture’s word count? Apparently: nothing!

“A plan that had been prepared and developed for years in dialogue between the city, the planners and the Komische Oper Berlin was rejected overnight,” say Susanne Moser and Philip Bröking, co-directors of the Komische Oper. Stopping construction for two years saves 10 million euros in the short term, but causes additional costs of around 250 million euros in the long term – costs that Senator for Culture Joe Chialo (CDU) and Senator for Finance Stefan Evers (CDU) are burdening citizens with the stroke of a pen. And apart from that, the interim solution in the Schiller Theater is definitely problematic, as the State Opera already discovered during its interim seasons there: the space and storage capacities there are extremely limited. While the main building has storage capacity for seven productions, nothing can be stored in the Schiller Theater, which will lead to a significant reduction in revivals over the years. Added to this is the difficult acoustics of the Schiller Theater, which was designed for spoken theater and is actually not suitable for musical theater.

All of this has been known for ages. So how does the CDU-SPD Senate endanger the existence of the Komische Oper, the audience’s favorite among musical theaters? The suspicion of the former artistic director of the Komische Oper, the star director Barry Kosky, that the CDU wants to close the Komische Oper cannot be dismissed out of hand: “They are lying when they say that they are keeping the house on Behrenstrasse want! I think that Finance Senator Evers and others in the CDU have long dreamed of only having two opera houses in Berlin. The German Opera in the west and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in the east. And the Komische Oper is being punished: for its success, for its GDR history, for the fact that this small house ensures diversity and variety. The fact that they are now saying that the Komische Oper is important to them is bullshit.” And in the rumor mill one can even hear that major investors have long been interested in the Filet property on Behrenstrasse – and the capital’s CDU (but also the SPD) has always had a particularly big heart.

Hard and bitter times in which the Komische Oper, the “birthplace of musical theater” (Dagmar Manzel), has to fear for its existence, which is celebrated all over the world, but especially by the Berlin audience. And a nasty mix of circumstances to attend a performance at this house – but at the Komische Oper the reaction is as befits a house of this class: with the utmost competence and quality. “Herbert Fritsch is doing a concert” is the name of the program, and this symphony concert is one of the most enjoyable things you could see this year, and not just on Berlin stages.

Fritsch, actor and director, has curated and partly staged an exciting program. Right from the overture from Weber’s “Der Freischütz,” Fritsch satirizes the performance rituals of symphony orchestras: the stiffness, vanity, sometimes arrogance, the constant shaking of hands (the conductor to the concertmaster: “Oh, have a nice day, you here too? That’s one Surprise, nice to see you”), then also the vain dances of some of the desk stars, which general director James Gaffigan delicious imitated. However, a musically excellent interpretation of the romantic classic is achieved, with beautiful horn sounds – happy hunter’s life, eerie wolf gorge, but in the end everything turns out well in radiant C major.

At first there was a bit of concern that Fritsch might go a little too far with his humorous satires and slide into the more staid humor of a Loriot and his encounters with orchestras, but this is confirmed by some pretty slapstick numbers from the actor as he climbs onto the conductor’s podium as well as through the comedic and flippant performances of the stage crew during the renovation (“So, now we’re done with the work, now you can play again”) was beautifully brushed aside (the names of the stage workers would have had room in the cast sheet and would have been nice to read there).

And in the two core pieces of this concert, Fritsch thankfully held back completely; here the music was played with complete seriousness and without fanfare: the impressive harpsichordist Gośka Isphording played the solo part in Iannis Xenakis’ composition “À l’île de Gorée” for amplified harpsichord and twelve musicians. A depressing but at the same time powerful work that refers to the island of Gorée, the island off the coast of Senegal that became known as a symbol for the abduction of slaves across the Atlantic. A musical manifesto of anti-racism that Xenakis dedicated to the victims of the slave trade and apartheid.

In a somewhat under-complex interview in the program, Fritsch says that “Xenakis’ music is not complicated,” but rather “an easy-to-enjoy experience.” Well, maybe Fritsch should have talked to the harpsichordist and the musicians about the composition. The polyrhythms of this composition alone are extremely complicated, full of irregular ametric rhythms, isochronous and phase-shifted polyrhythms, undoubtedly a nod by the composer to the rhythmic complexity of African music. Clashing chords and wild, garland-like outbursts can be heard from the harpsichord, which pose extreme challenges to the soloist and which Gośka Isphording mastered wonderfully. Towards the end you even think you can hear the view from the slave island of the wide Atlantic Ocean.

The other big piece of the evening is also a kind of concert for a keyboard instrument: Alexander Scriabin’s “Prométhée ou Le Poème du feu op. 60” is a symphonic poem that revolves around the ancient myth of Prometheus, who gave fire to humanity (i.e. the Civilization) and to whom the gods sent an eagle as punishment, which hacks the liver out of Prometheus’ body piece by piece. The score actually prescribes a “color piano” as a solo instrument, which is notated in two parts in the score and intuitively assigns a color to each fundamental note of a key. Scriabin was a synesthete and was interested in the connection between music and light – the concert hall should shine in a different color depending on the key. This would probably be difficult to accomplish even today, as the stage background was at least brightly colored.

Above all, the pianist Danæ Dörken was very impressive in making the grand piano shimmer in all colors and create the ecstasy in the music that Scriabin demanded. To do this, the composer uses the “mystical chord” he founded, consisting of six tones that are layered on top of each other in pure, augmented and diminished fourths and refer to the overtone series. This chord resolves the major-minor tonality and can be transposed to all twelve degrees of the chromatic scale. This creates a simultaneously transparent, but also mystical-nervous, almost magical atmosphere, which was modulated by Danæ Dörken and the fabulously arranged orchestra of the Komische Oper under the careful direction of Gaffigan to another fascinating highlight of the evening.

Between these two concertos for keyboard instruments and orchestra, Fritsch has placed another (too) rarely performed work: György Ligeti’s “Poème Symphonique for 100 Metronomes” from 1962. The one hundred orchestra musicians and choir soloists of the Komische Oper each carry a metronome into the hall and place it on their horizontal instrument stands. They wind up the metronomes equally and set them in motion at different tempos as Fritsch uses them. A swarm of 100 tick-tock sounds is created, which constantly transforms into different rhythms and which naturally has a permanent diminuendo inscribed because the metronomes gradually come to a standstill. The sound changes, but so does the rhythm, which becomes more and more uniform. Finally there are only three metronomes that tick away for a long time before they too come to a standstill. We experience the fantasy of a sounding labyrinth, completely in the Fluxus style of the 60s.

With this effortlessly funny and extremely demanding program, the Komische Oper Berlin shows in an inspiring way what is special about this house: magnificent art of the highest level is offered here for a colorful, diverse audience. “Herbert Fritsch is making a concert” was a remarkable plea for an institution that must be preserved unconditionally and without restrictions.

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