The sting could have quietly drilled a little deeper

The collective Nico and the Navigators digs through 400 years of music history - with an emphasis on death - in "Nobody Dies in the Middle of Life." At the premiere in Berlin's Konzerthaus on Wednesday, the emotional drop height was missing, writes Jakob Bauer. Of course, it can't be missing from an evening about death: Chopin's Funeral March, which waltzes through the hall in deep blackness. It is music that evokes images in a fraction of a second, of funerals, of weeping people - of death. With this clear assignment and localization, he is the absolute exception on this evening. For the six women and men on stage, who dance and sing, reveal personal details and philosophize about death with the words of poets and thinkers, draw anything but a clear picture of death on this evening. From Monteverdi to Hank Williams This becomes clear right at the beginning: There the Navigators switch from almost 400 years old music from Monteverdi to country legend Hank Williams. "The Angel Of Death" is the name of the song, which undoubtedly deals with its own finiteness in a melancholy way. On this evening, however, the drummer of the Navigators plays on a marimba - whereby the Angel of Death loses its danger and rather develops a cheerful note. This is not only reinforced by the fact that two black-clad figures are driving around the marimba more comically than creepily, trying to get the drummer out of time. For the ironic refraction of the supposedly so heavy topic of death has system on this evening. "When I was at my grandma's funeral, everyone thought I was sad. But I was just hungry," the musical director of the four-member ensemble, Matan Porat, tells us at the beginning of the second half of the evening. All the other artists - musicians, dancers and singers - also tell little personal stories about death, from cheerful to cloudy, funny or without any punch line. Between the pieces, a speaker reflects on death: What should I be afraid of? What actually is time and how much of it do I have left? What would happen if someone died in this room - isn't death too much of a taboo? The distance to death remains The more time passes on this evening, the more it seems as if one does not really get closer to death here either. The topic is supposed to be treated ambivalently and not too heavily - good, but because of that, at least here the feelings make themselves comfortable in mediocrity. One is appreciative, but little moved. The music of the more than 30 pieces is great interlocked - the emotions are not. Too much is delivered with a literal wink. But the humor, which sometimes goes into slapstick, would first need an emotional drop to really work. When ashes are literally slapped on one's head, it is less cathartic than silly. One holds back, the distance to death remains. And all around the world comes to an end Until the last quarter of the evening. Introduced by Chopin's funeral march and Schlingensief's quote "I would just like to shout to all people how great it is to be on this earth", the Navigators turn up the heat. Suddenly there it is, the outbreak from indifference, the dance of death and the intoxication of life, this ambivalence, the urgency and inevitability, the passion and the tears. As a couple turns very slowly, gazing lovingly - she in black, he in white - on stage, the world around them goes to hell in a musical chaos and wild dervish dance. The bitter-sweet sting sits. He could only have drilled a little deeper.

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