Last premiere in the main house of the Komische Oper: Hero against his will

Envy, revenge, family strife, abuse of power, populism, war – and love, of course, also between men: George Frideric Handel’s English-language, immensely operatic oratorio “Saul”, after its premiere in 1739, was briefly a hit (which, however, could not solve the composer’s financial problems ), contains the full roar of all that human beings have been able to do to one another since biblical times. And it promises a rich baroque evening as the last premiere in the main building of the Komische Oper before the renovation.

Before the overture, conducted by David Bates, an animated sketch introduces the plot of the Old Testament, more or less by whispering, with the voice of director Axel Ranisch. Psst, don’t tell anyone: King Saul disobeyed God and spared the Amalekites during his campaigns, which is why he now lacks heavenly support in the fight against the Philistines. But little David can fix it, he kills the giant enemy Goliath with his slingshot.

Jonathan Loves David: A Biblical Coming Out Story

The flag-waving people of the Israelites promptly no longer worship Saul enthroned on Goliath’s stage-filling XXL head (stage design: Falko Herold), but the shepherd boy. Saul’s children, the beautiful Michal, the impetuous Jonathan and after initial rejection even his eldest child, Merab, fall for the pure fool. Why Saul wishes his competitor dead. But it doesn’t work: spears miss him, Jonathan prefers to flirt with David instead of assassinating him, and Saul does not return from the next battle as a corpse, but again as a victorious hero.

Axel Ranisch, who, after starting his career as a queer filmmaker and darling of the public with funny no-budget improvisations such as “Dicke Mädchen” and “I feel disco”, now mainly stages music theater pieces, initially focuses on Jonathan’s coming out (sometimes lyrical, sometimes rebelliously saying no : tenor Rupert Charlesworth). And to David as a hero against his will. A figure of projection: The shepherd boy climbs into the four-poster bed with everyone who is keen on him and submits to the personality cult with which the people still oppress him even when Goliath’s head begins to rot as a skull.

The only strange thing is that in the third act he stabs the Amalekite messenger so energetically and mercilessly. Heroes are killers, aren’t they? Or is David controlled externally by the high priest (Tansel Akzeybek), who was previously Saul’s whisperer? Ranisch does not explore the complexity of David’s personality, nor the inner conflict and madness of Saul, who suffers like an animal from his decline. Right from the start, however, Luca Tittoto’s bass-baritone lacks that sonorous authority that his character only loses as the story progresses.

Ranisch’s leadership and the performances of the excellently intoned opera choir exhaust themselves in often helpless, overly explicit gestures, including hand wringing at a not particularly high level.

You only have to watch a few YouTube clips from Barrie Koksy’s 2015 Glyndebourner production of Saul to understand the difference. There the cipher-like exaggeration to the grotesque and the mass choreographies precisely developed from the score, here the trend towards Punch and Judy, to jokes (the jealous Merab appears until the end with smeared lipstick), to self-quotation. When Jonathan, who was spurned by David, no longer feels good at all, he sits in front of loudspeakers with his headphones on – under a disco ball.

The energetic, sporty drive of the orchestra of the Komische Oper and Handel’s unusual instrumentation with carillon for the interlude, organ accompaniment and low-tuned kettledrums carry away some of the silliness, but one would like the evening to be musically more differentiated.

At best, the direction illustrates Handel’s arias of pain, heart and anger, as well as the jubilant and lamenting choruses. The second part, which turns dramatic in front of the gloomy ruins of war, including the famous funeral march, does not change that. The only exception: the shockingly pale intoned chant of death by the choir.

An event: countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen as David

Penny Sofroniadou as Merab with lively top tones and Nadja Mchantaf as Michal with a warm timbre do a good job. The event of the evening, however, is Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen’s David. The countertenor from New York sings flawlessly, effortlessly, yet intimately, never flatly: No wonder, one thinks immediately, that everyone is at the feet of this boy. In the end, with King Saul and Prince Jonathan dead and David beginning to suspect that a similar fate awaits him and his newborn son, he sings into a melancholy Herbert Howells “King David” song, a 100-year-old art song. The heir to the throne listens to the nightingale, now lonely and lost himself – Ranisch’s best directorial idea.

An oratorio about a departure and farewell, embedded in the Pentecost Handel Festival with revivals of Stefan Herheim’s “Xerxes” and Kosky’s “Semele”, it fits the mood on Behrenstrasse. What will the future hold when the Komische Oper travels to the Schillertheater and other Berlin venues? The jubilation in the hall is spiced with melancholy. It also applies to an era that will end here in a few days.