Friedrich Eggert / Recensies

Ein Glücksfall für die Aufführung ist auch Monika Reinhard als Maria Rainer, zunächst eine unbekümmerte Anwärterin, um in das Nonnenstift einzutreten, und später in weltlicher Funktion die Erzieherin der Trapp-Kinder. Sie zeigt das Werden einer Persönlichkeit zwischen Gott-Gläubigkeit und Heimatliebe und mit einer Portion liebenswürdiger Gradlinigkeit, auch Emanzipation. Ihre Maria lässt bei aller Gutgläubigkeit nie Sentimentalität aufkommen. Sie zeigt eine Kraft, die im wahrsten Sinne Berge versetzen kann.

The fourth music theater premiere of the Meiningen State Theater in the still young 2021/22 season and the third in the calendar month of October! Director Jens Neundorff von Enzberg took the finished decorations from the Regensburg Theater to Thuringia because Corona had prevented production there. The costumes were then created in Meiningen. Ovations for a moving evening about the life-changing power of music and a production rich in emotions and free of sentimentality. The six virtuoso child actors were particularly impressive. The musical based on the book "Trapp Family Singers" by Maria Augusta Trapp never really felt at home in the German-speaking world. The American composer Richard Rodgers understood the Salzkammergut at least as well as the thirty composers who had previously worked on the “Weißes Rössl”. In Meiningen, a new production of the musical, which was released on Broadway in 1959 and was filmed in 1965 with Julie Andrews, was convincing and inspiring in all areas. In front of Friedrich Eggert's rocky landscape with a monastery church, in which the nuns wear smart purple and the Meiningen choirwomen make a not at all otherworldly impression, the villa, which is decorated with beige tones, has at best the slightest associations with a Heimatfilm. The American musical dealt with Germany's darkest time not only in "Cabaret", but also in "The Sound of Music". Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II are more tolerable and even a touch optimisticabove all in the conviction that music, like faith, moves mountains. Harish Shankar and the Meininger Hofkapelle brought Rodgers' irresistible music to life in a crystalline, floating and seductive manner. They confirm that the ultra-right are wrong when they assert exclusive claim to the musical Alpine idiom. Fortunately, musically they distanced themselves from the American show sound. These were the best prerequisites for a successful and sometimes touching evening of the premiere, also in the fine changes between music and text. In two casts, the stars are the six children of Captain Trapp, who is hardened in mourning for his wife. Things change when Maria comes out of the convent as a governess and—supported by Hakan T. Aslan's choreography—wins the children's affection all the faster. These – on the evening of the premiere: Paul Rümann, Klara Kovác, Gabriel Kovac, Leona Balázs-Piri, Rosanna Samantha Loos, Melia Mahr – take on the inveterate professionals really well and speak their dialogues with admirably polished stage presence. The intensity of expression of the young actors is always right. Cuteness remains a foreign word throughout the evening. – As Sister Maria, Monika Reinhard is a stroke of luck, In his direction, Bernd Mottl always focuses on filigree images of people that never become sluggish or slow down the subtle tempo of the Rodgers musical. He keeps the scenes in the Nonnenbergstift in a delicate state of suspension between gentle caricature and heart, giving the figures more syncopated individuality than scenic motor skills. The gradual adaptation of Austria to Hitler's Germany is clear, but not gross - the exception remains the threatening gestures of Hitler's executors, who hasten the flight of the Trapp family. Stan Meus as the opportunistic artist agent Max Dettweiler, Thomas Lüllig as the Nazi servant Franz and Christine Zart as the resolutely understanding housekeeper Frau Schmidt provide vital characters. Unlike in the film, when Elsa Schrader (Cordula Rochler) first appears, it is not yet clear whether she or Maria will be in the running for the place alongside Captain Trapp. First because of her bon vivant attitude towards the children, and then towards the National Socialists, Elsa ditches herself. The flirts between Trapp's eldest daughter Liesl (Carmen Kirschner) and Rolf Gruber (Emil Schwarz), the brown shirt who enabled the family to escape, are also moving. This figure shows how strongly Bernd Mottl relies on the humanity of the piece. Also to Michael Jeske as Captain Trapp, who has an exceptionally hard and rumbling shell before the slow exposure of his soft core. Jeske is not a cavalier with a light breastplate, but a tough dragoon whose emotional conquest even non-nuns would have reached their limits. "My Fair Lady", "Hello Dolly", "The Sound of Music"... - in Meiningen it becomes clear that this piece belongs to the Broadway pattern "The Taming of the Shrew". Manuel Bethe designed the nun scenes with the women's choir at the level of madrigalists. Marianne Schechtel is more a therapist than a superior, making the Nonnenbergstift a very pleasant place to be. The levels simply balance between political thunder and islands of bliss. The final applause is for a performance in a successful proportion of cheerfulness and depth.