For heaven’s sake

Gioachino Rossini's makes his contribution to the Kunstfest Weimar with "Petite messe solennelle" and "Nico and the Navigators". And Nike Wagner once again made smiling use of the Erfurt Opera. Sometimes one could think that Nike Wagner's vocation is to sharply skewer the weaknesses that her two unloved cousins in Bayreuth have - supposedly or actually - encountered in dealing with the works of their common great-grandfather Richard Wagner. Yet their factual criticism of the annual Richard Wagner circus is much more convincing. Not only because she positions Franz Liszt, also a common great-great-grandfather, for this in Weimar with her art festival. But above all because she does it with a sense for the exquisite, with programmatic ambition and occasionally with a wink. As in the case of the Berlin theater troupe "Nico and the Navigators" around director Nicola Hümpel, who have now incorporated Gioachino Rossini's "Petite messe solennelle" into their world of dance and music. With "creeds of the 21st century" the subtitle is certainly a bit exaggerated. But an oratorio dedicated to God himself, which the composer and bon vivant Rossini (1792 - 1868) added to his life's work four years before his death and 34 years after he had put opera composition on the back burner, is hard to imagine the Italian as a template for a fundamental critique of religions today. Rather as a friendly mild toast to the heavens. After all, not only is there witty parlance in this entertainingly danced and sung picture theater, but also a look at our present with winking self-irony. It is no coincidence that at the end, when the light has gone out, a laugh from the darkness is the last thing you hear. "Did you see the Pope?" was one of the first questions of the repeatedly sketchily interspersed dialogues between the critically questioning young man and the answering priestly cowl-wearer. Alluding to the upcoming papal visit, the answer was that it was much more important whether the pope had seen you. Even the pope could probably smile about that. And they don't really get any more biting than that. The Berlin troupe remains on the easily digestible, ironic level that perceives faith more or less as part of the rituals of media society. Which, in the eastern part of the republic, far from the church, may at least include the hasty opportunism of a newly discovered religiosity.

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