The beer. Holy refreshment. Who doubted it, especially here in Bavaria, where the inn is next to the church, both visited to varying degrees, but still a unity. They can flow into one another, architecturally: the brewery hall in Pfarrkirchen already has an ecclesiastical appearance (albeit a more Protestant one with its balconies on the first floor), it even has a small apse with a stage in it. The city bought the hall when the brewery was no longer running, now culture takes place there. Like the “Bieroper” by Peter Androsch, a production of the Theater an der Rott in Eggenfelden, which is not far away.
It takes a long time to get to this hagiographic experience, from Munich always in the direction of Altötting, roughly, so the destination fits, place of pilgrimage. Because Androsch’s “Beer Opera” is a stage beer festival, you can tell from the fact that cunningly inserted music swims around in it, unfiltered, so to speak, Bruckner and Wagner, but also Handel’s “Lascia ch’io pianga”, here as a humming beautiful vocalise.
The devil is an angel who fell into a can of beer
You learn a lot. In the middle of the hall there is a circular podium, white and blue diamonds, a kind of boxing ring, at least there is Lucca Züchner here, beaming number girl, announcer, tamer of the beer ingredients. And at the end also a great tragedy with a monologue about the canned beer in the beer can, canned beer leftovers and their skin taste, which also contains a little sulphur. And where there is sulfur, there is also the devil, which is the reverse of the holy refreshment. But the devil is only a fallen angel, one who fell into a can of beer.
Oh yes, you learn. About the production of the beer, malting and crushing, fermentation and resting, the bacteria and amylase. It grows out of the barley grain and an hour later the beer is ready, but only in the “Beer Opera”, it usually takes longer.
The very funny thing is that Eva Maria Amann, Bonko Karadjov, Armin Stockerer and Andreas Barth sing and play all this with the utmost seriousness, also because the director Yaron David Müller-Zach knows very well that you have to take the strange seriously so that it preserve his dignity. So the four are bacteria and barleycorns, they sing the greatest opera and such nonsense, they are all four masters of their craft, although with Bonko Karadjov, for example, one cannot say what the craft is, because he is bass-baritone and falsetto at the same time, albeit not at the same moment.
The “Beer Opera” can be imagined as a tour opera in a tavern
Peter Androsch has already written two operas for the Theater an der Rott, he has composed a total of 22 music theater works, he is a sound researcher and artist as well, can design fabulous audio walks or direct festivals in Linz, where he lives, or Regensburg, where there are beautiful inns are. He cultivates a bright pragmatism when need be. The “beer opera” can be imagined as a tour opera in a tavern, because it only needs two musicians in addition to the five actors: Philip Staudt plays the trumpet and flugelhorn, Dean Wilmington the home organ, the instrument with which you can do everything if you doesn’t exactly have an orchestra at hand.
The only drawback: the idea was that you were sitting in this tavern hall in front of a roast pork and a beer. There is no such thing as both. And yet the supply of what is at stake here would be helpful for the eschatological extravagance that one can encounter here. From Mary’s tears to the Holy Spirit. Because beer also consists of a trinity, and for that you need: the unfertilized, female hop cone. Even if so far few people have thought of an immaculate conception while drinking beer.