Katharine Mehrling at the Komische Oper: Life, scratched

The violins are weaving trembling cobweb threads, and already Katharine Mehrling is cutting the air with her voice. Slightly roughened, cracked like Berlin, tough and lascivious, the dirt and glamor of the big city pair in their songs.

First appearance through one of the doors in the pleated backdrop wall, slam in, slam out. The singer quickly exchanges the modest brown suit for a bright red plush coat with a red wig, only to appear a little later as a vamp, as a Berlin brat, as a vamp, as a diva, as a slut, rock girl, chansonette, pirate Jenny. She willingly allows her mute stage partner Michael Fernandez to finger her, but soon forces him to his knees. Mehrlings natural organ sweeps away all.

Kurt Weill recital at the Komische Oper, “… and with tomorrow you can me!”, set up by ex-director Barrie Kosky, who returns to his fans with it: to the thunderous final applause, he also kneels in front of Mehrling.

In 2019, the two hosted a Weill Exillieder evening in the house on Behrenstrasse, with Kosky on the piano. This time, with Weill’s Berlin songs, above all from the “Threepenny Opera” and from “Happy End”, the large orchestra is there. Kai Tietje, who arranged the songs, provides snappy dance rhythms on the podium, with saxophone, electric guitar and opulent big band sound. Whether oriental oboe with drum, slow-motion tango with flamenco sprinkles in the “pimp ballad”, rumba or swing: the ladies in the row in front of us are almost catapulted out of their seats.

Weimar Republic, the Golden Twenties, Katharine Mehrling dances on the volcano, whether as an amusement lady in a smoky nightclub (the next stage, populated by all sorts of extras) or as a femme fatale in front of a sea of ​​silhouetted houses. In the Mackie Messer song, she changes language with every verse, plays jazzy trumpet solos at her best, shines with explicit and exquisite sex appeal, with circling cymbals and rolling R.

Brechtian parlando, art of seduction scratched by life, every high note an act of revenge: Katherine Mehrling only needs to call out “Honey” to the men, be careful, danger of injury! Dancer Fernandez, sometimes a drag queen, sometimes a love servant, sometimes a hairy monkey, sometimes a black-veiled widow, still keeps trying with her.

The metropolitan blues is also not neglected in Weill’s setting of the snotty, melancholy verses from Erich Kästner’s “Farewell Letter” from Erna Schmidt to her faithless beau. Mehrling cheers up the song with the ironic enumeration of all U8 stations from Hermannstraße to Wittenau: It would be laughable if lovesickness couldn’t be dealt with on the return journey on the subway at the latest.

Barrie Kosky wouldn’t be Barrie Kosky if he hadn’t mixed in political elements to the entertaining evening – which, with its scenery that is as effective as it is simply constructed, can easily be transported to the alternative quarters of the Schillertheater after the summer break, which is due to renovation. In the roaring twenties, the dissonances of National Socialism were already ringing. First, Mehrling fills the suddenly empty stage with tones of longing and lamentation in the Hebrew folk song “Ba’a M’nucha” arranged by Weill. Later, war ensues: the extras, decked out in giant papier-mâché heads, trot and march to “And what got the soldier’s wife”; Immediately afterwards, in Weill’s little-known Song of the Blind Girl, Mehrling evokes the dangers of blind obedience.

The 47-year-old singer, who caused a sensation as Piaf, Evita, Eliza Doolittle and since Kosky’s “Ball im Savoy” not least at the Komische Oper, can record another triumph in Berlin with this song recital. Only the finale is a bit disappointing. The evening does not end with the “Ballad von der Höllen-Lili”, which celebrates the pure present, but with the “How long?” lamentation of a woman who absolutely cannot part with her guy. Where is the defiance, where is the power and the cannon shots of the man-murdering pirate Jenny?

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