Albert Lortzing breaks rank among the monuments in Tiergarten, the green lung of the city. Goethe and Wagner, two titans of music, theatre and poetry have monuments there. This now forgotten but, in the 19th century, enormously popular composer, lyricist, actor and singer also has one. Director Martin G. Berger has a photoshoot at Tiergarten, which is now so seldom coated with snow. He has brought the ladder that he will use to muck about at the monument—an activity that is not entirely without danger. One could easily picture Berger in a slapstick silent film, especially when the snow and overcast sky drain away all the colour and dampen the atmosphere. But Berger, a Berliner, is already speaking during the photoshoot: “Lortzing was kind of a Till Schweiger of pre-revolutionary Germany. He tailor-made everything for himself and cast himself in the best roles. And his mother was on board! Okay, for Schweiger it’s his kids who act with him…”

Lortzing's successes included the light opera ZAR UND ZIMMERMANN, which debuted in Leipzig of December 1837. The plot is a mix of traditional mistaken identity comedy and spy thriller, to use modern terms. Russian Tsar Peter I travels incognito to Holland to learn shipbuilding in secret. But there is another Peter from Russia there as well, a dissident on the run who falls in love with the Dutch mayor's daughter. She believes the dissident to be the tsar, and the play about espionage, love and power truly begins…

Berger is able to rejuvenate seemingly dusty, outdated material without going too heavily against the grain. He achieved this with a dark, century-old play like Ödön von Horváth's Kasimir und Karoline, which he rewrote into a sort of musical for the Staatsoper Hannover. "Purists were concerned that the characters say things in the songs that they don't say in Horváth's work. Many viewers, not just younger ones, watched it like a Netflix production." For his adaptation of Richard Strauss' ARIADNE AUF NAXOS (libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal), the young Berger won the renowned DER FAUST Award for Best Musical Theatre Direction at the Nationaltheater Weimar in 2020. The musical lover is simply not afraid to make heavy subject matter lighter. This is precisely the challenge of reviving Lortzing's opera, which has not been performed in decades.

Indeed, only older fans of opera are likely to remember ZAR UND ZIMMERMANN. Berger instantly hits his stride when he explains why he sees so much potential for our modern day in this opera. "Lortzing writes very concretely about how political function and humanity get in each other's way." In one aria that is usually cut, the tsar sings about his brutal regime, even about what he believes to be politically justified murder. "And the next moment he's drinking a beer with the dissident Peter Ivanov like in some romantic comedy, with the difference that Peter I would have his new friend murdered back home without blinking an eye."

Now all the red flags are up: The Russian leader as monster and human alike—are we supposed to feel sympathy for a dictator? "My God," says Berger, "equating the tsar with Putin would be inappropriate and flat. We don't have to depict Putin as a human being. And to do so would betray one of the opera's major qualities, namely its lightness in spite of its political framework."

Martin G. Berger on a ladder next to the Lortzing monument in Tiergarten © Nancy Jesse

 

The tsar in Berger’s production does not rule over Russia, but rather over a small “operetta state” between Russia and Latvia that we have invented. The tension between the personal and the political defines Lortzing’s plot, whereas Berger adds further contemporary accents to the other characters in the opera. “Mayor van Bett is campaigning to be re-elected and is under pressure to track down illegal immigrants. Marie, his niece who wants to marry the immigrant Peter Ivanov, is an activist who works with integration.” But according to Berger, the opportunism of the French and English ambassadors shows that “we are not making a huge jump here. The power plays and emotions involved in politics, all of that was already there with Lortzing.”

Just to make sure: The libretto and music will stay the same? "Of course, we're just updating the dialogue scenes as was always the tradition with light operas and operettas. These works wanted to be modern in their day, and it wouldn't do them justice to leave them as they are. Lortzing's dialogue is very important, so the parts have to be played by people who speak German very well." Berg values maintaining the feeling of the language. "German humour may not have the best reputation, but Lortzing had a knack for putting everything in the language." With its fast-paced music and great melodies from the very start, something emerges in ZAR UND ZIMMERMANN that the National Socialist regime wiped out. "To this day, we still feel the loss of so many incredible composers like Kurt Weill, the first German to win a Tony Award."

Music became more complex in the second half of the 18th century, and Lortzing's music is still quite gripping. There are advantages to it not being at the forefront of the modern canon, says Berger. "There is no ideal recording that people reference. This music, and these melodies, leave lots of room for interpretation. You really have to make something out of it. And the conductor Antonello Manacorda really enjoys that, as does the orchestra." To anyone who thinks that somewhat lighter art is also easier to make. "It's hard to select the singers, because traditional operetta is hard to learn these days."

While serving as opera director at the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater in Schwerin, Berger enjoyed pushing the boundaries of how much spectacle, entertainment and fun is possible. He was able to bring the now world-renowned choreographer Florentina Holzinger to debut Paul Hindemith's Sancta at the theatre. With every step you take with him through the snow, leaving fleeting traces in Tiergarten, you get the sense that he never seeks to trivialize. His verve makes it seem as though he were still fighting for Lortzing's reputation more than 170 years after his death.

Copyright law wasn't quite where it is now, and it's too late to assert it. But Lortzing's time is coming. Martin G. Berger is his advocate for the last premiere of Christoph Seuferle's directorship.

Tobi Müller is a cultural journalist, dramaturg and author in Berlin, originally from Switzerland. He co-created three theatre pieces and a film as dramatic advisor and director. Müller reports for Zeit online and Deutschlandfunk about pop, the performing arts and digitalisation.