Oh, how the 1960s interior of an Italian bar is always an eye-catcher and awakens holiday feelings, just like now on the studio stage of the Gärtnerplatztheater! Judith Leikauf and Karl Fehringer also lovingly designed the details from the coffee machine to the floor, the lamps and a fly curtain in the colors of the Italian flag, as well as wonderful costumes typical of the time.
And because the music of Gaetano Donizetti’s one-hour “Rita”, which premiered posthumously, is funny and vital, but the plot is a bit dusty, Thomas Pigor, already the librettist of the revue operetta “Drei Mann im Schnee” and the German version of “Monty Python’s The Life of Brian” quickly invented a new plot: bar and hotel manager Rita has found a husband from Hungary in Beppe (Gyla Rab), who is under her thumb and can experience what happens when his polenta burns.
Then suddenly the ex-husband named Kaspar (Ludwig Mittelhammer), who supposedly died in a plane crash, appears, a genuine Lower Bavarian, and as always in the opera, tenor and baritone compete for the soprano; in this case, both want to get rid of them. Old debts have to be settled, an allegedly burned marriage certificate is discovered and stolen immediately afterwards, but turns out to be a delivery note. And “the bearded guest” (Dieter Fernengel, who looks like RW Fassbinder) without a wig under his coat is a shimmering silver godfather to whom everyone owes money. So at the end there is a “polyamorous” ménage-à-trois with an open outcome.
Thomas Pigor has created a witty new version, the singability of which is sometimes put to the test, just as one or the other verse was forged along the lines of “rhyme you or I’ll eat you”. It’s funny in any case, the mini-orchestra made up of members of the Gärtnerplatztheater plays under Oleg Ptashnikov as a prima banda, the pretty Italian Cecilia Gaetani has a bomb soprano, and the two boys have audible and visible fun playing roles under the direction of Maximilian Berling. game in every way. Gyla Rab with the fine, light shine of a tenore di Grazia, Ludwig Mittelhammer as a robust buffo-baritone. Both succeed in the spoken dialogues and when they haggle like sandbox boys with frills, frills, frills for Rita, not to take themselves too seriously in this one-act play.
Because the premiere had to be postponed by almost two weeks due to illness and only one of the six planned performances remained, “Rita” will unfortunately not be available again until April next year, but then five times.