He’ll be there after two and a half hours, but he’s the king and you have to wait for a king. Of course, the waiting time is dictated by the piece, “Die Dubarry”, an operetta by Carl Millöcker, which had two world premieres, in 1879 in the original form and in 1931 in the revision by Theo Mackeben. Only the second version is still played today, as it is now in Vienna, at the Volksoper. Lotte de Beer opens her artistic directorship with it, has Jan Philipp Gloger, the acting director of the Staatstheater Nürnberg, stage it, and shows what she wants with the operetta: not to destroy it, but to free it from the mustiness, from the mustiness, from questionable role models. It all works fabulously well, and the Viennese audience, consisting of the world’s greatest operetta experts, is enthusiastic.
So now asks Louis XV. to the audience, which is actually a meat inspection, because he is looking for a new playmate. The audience itself, on the other hand, is something that sounds very familiar. Because the king is played by Harald Schmidt, who feels right at home here. Afterwards he says that taking part in the operetta is pure pleasure for him, the genre fits in well with our times, which are full of operetta elements. Laughter always helps, one could add, and there’s a lot to laugh about, even in the audience, which looks like one of Schmidt’s “Late Night Shows”, just in the opulent costume decor of the 18th century, for which Sibylle Wallum is responsible.
The trained actor Schmidt becomes the king of his own show
But the special effect: since Schmidt’s talk show was a permanent feature on television a few years ago and became iconic, the performance never gives you the feeling that an artificial product is being quoted, but rather the impression that a real reality is penetrating the stage, which is simply different attracts the existing decor. As a king, the trained actor Schmidt becomes the performer of his own show, which now seems as if he is re-enacting something that actually happened on stage. That’s pretty grand. Schmidt also sings, baritone, Annette Dasch also gave him a few bars of hers. Dasch once had a TV show himself, so this is where two pros meet. Most importantly, she sings and plays the title role here and is an absolutely stunning experience.
“The Dubarry” depicts the historical life of this daughter of a seamstress who, as a tool of powerful men, makes it to the mistress of the king – and meets her end on the guillotine. Gloger understands her life in an exemplary manner, has Christof Hetzer build a great box that rotates, which is sometimes pushed by the Dubarry herself when she is fed up with a scene that shows gold-framed pictures from different times: The beginning today, saleswomen in a luxury boutique, the boss (Ulrike Steinsky) is a proto-feminist Vivienne Westwood, who sells Chinese mass-produced goods as luxury items. The workers groan, lurking for guys with money, Margot is successful in their search, the gorgeous Juliette Khalil, who makes no secret of her character’s greed for money with the driest, self-deprecating humor – the Marquis de Brissac, Wolfgang Gratschmaier, is completely helpless to her enthusiastically succumbed, a bizarre, very funny couple at eye level.
From there it goes through the times, Berlin 1931, so poverty and rich dames, Sisi’s time in Austria, Versailles 1769. And it’s always about: women want to determine their own lives, but the men have the power and the money. At least they think so. There is another way. This is shown by Dubarry, who gets rid of her penniless beau, a painter who wants to make a career out of a nude painting of her, even though Lucian Krasznec throws himself into his tenor role with all his might. Daschs Dubarry is confident, grumpy, outspoken. After an attempt at rape in the game club, she calls on the other gentlemen to “throw the drunken asshole out”, but she also learns, ravishingly funny, Viennese etiquette, an event for Dasch as a Berliner. Even when it comes to culinary questions: “You can’t say little brown ones anymore.”
Dubarry (Annette Dasch) rocks guitar in hand.
(Photo: Barbara Pálffy/Volksoper Wien)
Dasch acts completely freely, the entire ensemble is a dream of playing precision anyway, but she has even more of a straightforward truth, an unbreakable authenticity, bangs into the male world with force, sometimes rocking it with the guitar in hand. The evening lasts long, but is short and very well aired, Gloger has created many great dialogues together with the ensemble, the music often disappears completely, but always comes back with rumbling elegance and also with powdered sugar dust – Omer Meir Wellber is not conducting, the new general manager of the house, but Kai Tietje.
For Lotte de Beer, a lot of what she longed for is happening here. The 41-year-old has been a sought-after opera director for a good ten years, only she was never allowed to make operettas. As a solution, she is now taking over a house where the genre has a long tradition, where she will be staging herself, including operas like Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s “Iolanta” next month. De Beer has the charisma of a Dutch Pippi Longstocking and is a real ensemble animal. There are three opera houses in Vienna, which she is happy about: the Theater an der Wien can be more adventurous because it operates as a stagione, the State Opera has world stars and is relieved of this burden. She has a home for artists. And their own stars. In the “Dubarry” that’s Annette Dasch. Which also makes Harald Schmidt happy.