Flesh or Spirit – is that the question? The Navigators honour Heinrich Schütz.

Yes, it is also about alternatives. About the question of how, in the pious yet pleasure-seeking Baroque era, one could have credibly advocated pure asceticism? And perhaps also about the fact that Protestant Christians, to this day, find it more difficult than Catholics to reconcile the joy of enjoyment with the joy of faith.

For the 350th anniversary of the death of the central German composer Heinrich Schütz, who has always lived somewhat in the shadow of Bach and Handel, the troupe Nico and the Navigators – founded more than 20 years ago at the Bauhaus Dessau and now based in Berlin – has staged a new music theatre work.

This co-production of the Navigators with the Heinrich Schütz Music Festival, the Kasseler Musiktage, the Staatstheater Kassel and Theater Altenburg Gera has become a tribute to Schütz that is both dignified and cheerful: virtuosic in music, dance, performance and song, fascinating through acuity, humour and sensual delight – just as one has come to expect from the troupe around director Nicola Hümpel and stage designer Oliver Proske. Musical direction is by Elfa Rún Kristinsdóttir (baroque violin), dramaturgy by author Andreas Hillger.

The plan to delve into things together and to enchant the audience has once again succeeded, carried, as always, by great mastery and unconditional commitment. This includes all participants, who are not only musicians and singers, but also stagehands who move and animate the fantastic set created by Oliver Proske.

Nor is the 90-minute production Fleisch & Geist short on surprises: Baroque sonorities suddenly slide askew, delicate ruffs turn into frivolous skirts. Much is read, but much is also desired. And pious books may fly through the air. The carnal and the intellectual belong together, without question – not only here.

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