Der Teufel im Lift at Neuköllner Oper
The production curates a selection of cantatas, arias and chorales by the one and only Johann Sebastian Bach to tell a modern story about (im)mortality, suffering, transience, and serendipity.
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🎭 Der Teufel im Lift
🎶 Johann Sebastian Bach
💭 Ansgar Weigner, 2023
🏛️ Neuköllner Oper
🗓️ 20.12.2024
“AND WERE THE WORLD WITH DEVILS FILLED,
ALL EAGER TO DEVOUR US,
OUR SOUL TO FEAR SHOULD LITTLE YIELD,
THEY CANNOT OVERPOWER US.”
Having cycled past the Neuköllner Oper many times going up and down Karl-Marx-Straße, it was high time to take a look inside. NKO is an independent small stage in the heart of Neukölln, founded in the 1970s as a modern alternative to conventional opera and combining spoken and sung text. The stage is housed in a former Wilhelmine ballroom, and the action happens right in front of the audience in an intimate manner reminiscent of Shakespearean theatre.
DER TEUFEL IM LIFT was a perfect introduction to this mix of opera and theatre (Singspiel? Musiktheater?). The production curates a selection of cantatas, arias and chorales by the one and only Johann Sebastian Bach to tell a modern story about (im)mortality, suffering, transience, and serendipity, touching on themes central to the human experience like love, sin, illness, death, guilt, forgiveness. Particularly these religious concepts take on a wholly worldly meaning throughout the modern setting.
The entire plot takes place in a hotel lobby (the archetype of liminal spaces), where the titular devil appears from the elevator coming down from floor 666. They (nonbinary devil, if I may) become a facilitator for conflict between the other characters, forcing them to confront uncomfortable truths about their existence and to reflect on past and present relationships: a prototypical business bro postponing a visit to his dying mother, a pregnant woman about to undergo an abortion procedure, a bartender contemplating his station in life.
The singing and acting (stellar!) is accompanied by the baroque ensemble Lautten Compagney who are known for proving how Early Music can thrive in a contemporary setting (not in an orchestra pit, but behind a blue mesh screen). In fact, it‘s quite remarkable how clearly Bach‘s over 300 year old cantatas still resonate today, and how seemingly effortlessly they can be strung together to for cohesive and compelling storytelling. The audience is asked to join in the singing a handful of times, reminding us of the original purpose of these cantatas: bringing communities together (and reminding me of a TikTok I saw recently commenting on singing as a „skill“ rather than simply as something that humans inherently have done for millennia).
On a side note, stages like the Neuköllner Oper will be much more strongly affected by recent budgeting decisions by the conservative Berlin government. Large houses like Deutsche Oper will have a harder time, too, but small establishments already operating on small budgets anyway will face a very tough next few years. The cast of the evening gave a grave warning when introducing the piece: “it might very well be possible that one year from now, such a performance won’t be possible”. Thus: support your local musical theatre! I‘ll be back at NKO soon for sure.
