In his best idea, Valentin Schwarz turns on the light and nothing else. The young Austrian, born in 1989, is staging York Höller’s “The Master and Margarita” at the Cologne Opera, which is remarkable in itself given the work, but really caused a stir because he was performing Wagner’s “Ring” in the summer will stage at the Bayreuth Festival. Here you can arm yourself for what might await you there.
In Höller’s opera, which faithfully follows Mikhail Bulgakov’s exuberant novel of the same name, the second act contains the “big Satan’s ball”, a ten-minute ballet scene in which the music goes completely nuts. Sound and stylistic quotations are dealt with at breakneck speed, Berlioz’ Faust opera or Busoni’s, medieval trumpets trumpet, a baroque consort meets jazz, the strings shimmer, the basses bubble, surrounded by a tape recorder and synthesizer ensure a chirping, hissing, cracking surround sound, congas, an e-guitar and an e-bass play in the orchestra and in the middle of it all, “Sympathy for the Devil” bangs out of the speakers, originally by the Rolling Stones from 1968. A crazy company would populate the stage for that , skeletons, undead, criminals of all kinds. Would. But with Valentin Schwarz, the stage is completely empty, you only look at the back wall, which consists of 600 lamps, which get brighter and brighter as the glorious musical frenzy progresses.
That’s great, because the music tells everything anyway. Before and after, Schwarz is by no means at a loss for scenic ideas. These work best if you’re familiar with the pub patrons in the first “Star Wars” film or appreciate serial comic book adaptations where things are turned into people or vice versa. But even when one is at home in such worlds, the free-wheeling imagination of what Schwarz had his costume designer Andy Visit and set designer Andrea Cozzi create eventually runs empty. Then it becomes arbitrary – and terribly boring. Schwarz himself got Corona two days before the premiere, and during the final applause he looks out of a laptop. This leads to the amusing circumstance that an irate visitor insults this very laptop, a scene as if Schwarz had thought it up himself.
Mikhail Bulgakov, and that makes this premiere frighteningly topical, was admired by Stalin throughout his life, but he was also constantly harassed, his master novel could only be published 16 years after his death. To put it very succinctly, it is about the following: The “Master” wrote a novel about Jesus, Pontius Pilate and the question of guilt. The communist culture officials, greedy hagglers, are furious, the master ends up in a mental asylum, his lover Margarita frees him with the help of the devil Voland, who immediately cleans up all of Soviet society with his entourage. In the end, the Master relieves Pilate of his guilt, which he had been gnawing on for 2000 years.
The opera follows this narrative, and thus there is of course plenty of opportunity for nonsense, which York Höller sets to music with wonderful tonal shapes and the greatest effort – the Cologne new production is therefore only the fourth implementation since the premiere in 1989. The sound structures rest on an iridescent harmony, interwoven are the voices, whose declamatory gesture is reminiscent of Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck”. In Cologne you can understand every word, which is also due to the fact that the huge orchestra is positioned to the right of the playing area in the Staatshaus, the permanent alternative venue of the Cologne Opera. That takes away some of the overwhelming force of the music, perhaps André de Rider conducts a little too little sardonicly, but the musical quality is still stunning, the composer present is happy and Nikolay Borchev (master), Adriana Bastidas-Gamboa ( Margarita) and Bjarni Thor Kristinsson (Voland).
So there is enough material, Schwarz supplements it with spoken texts and documents from the off, introduces an actor, makes people look like Gothic church windows in the ancient scenes and enigmatic words appear on the light wall, populates the stage with human creatures and transforms them Writers’ association into a troupe of artists – van Gogh with and without ears, Dalí, Warhol and others – seated in front of a Campbell’s can of tomato soup at the Last Supper. It’s all very imaginative. And brings nothing. By the way, Schwarz’ “Ring” is supposed to resemble a Netflix series, he has already revealed that much.