Review – Reinhard Febel’s “Benjamin Button” in Linz
Being young isn’t always great
April 7th, 2024 by Jörn Florian Fuchs
Some people might ask themselves when they hear the name Reinhard Febel: Please, who is that? Even new music enthusiasts won’t necessarily sit up and take notice. The 70-year-old always ran a bit under the radar of the company, which became a real mistake not only on the occasion of his latest opera.
Image source: Reinhard Winkler
Febel, who was born in Metzingen and trained under Swiss composition doyen Klaus Huber and at the Parisian electronics studio IRCAM, worked for a long time as a professor at the Salzburg Mozarteum. In addition to many orchestral and vocal works, there was occasional musical theater, primarily based on literary material.
World famous thanks to Brad Pitt
So now “Benjamin Button”, many people know the film with Brad Pitt, some certainly also know the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published a good 100 years ago. The plot is as simple as it is crazy. Benjamin is born an old man and experiences constant rejuvenation, until death in childbirth, one could say. Reinhard Febel created a clever, sometimes funny, but often melancholic libretto and invented four cuddly toys as a bracket, which, as it were, give birth to Benjamin and then say goodbye to him again at the end. Before that, little Benji (as he is called there) mows down the troops with a toy gun, but this doesn’t bother them any further.
Close to Austrian folk culture
Image source: Reinhard Winkler It often sounds high-speed, Febel plays virtuoso with the timbres and idiom of the respective time – we are talking about a considerable range: from 1860 to the end of the Second World War. It jazzes, it grooves, then again rhythmically very intricate passages sound, close to minimal music. But banality or kitsch never arises. When the wildly meandering texture becomes more permeable, Febel sometimes switches to chamber scoring, for example with airy accents from the leading piano. But soon we find ourselves back in the torrent full of sophisticated percussion effects and brass attacks. Incidentally, Benjamin Button’s tapers are identified by a – very loud – ratchet, which means Febel is also close to Austrian folk culture…
Musically and vocally convincing
The handling of the voices is also virtuoso; Martin Achrainer can and must work his way through the finest lyrical phrases, like deliberately unnerving nerve music, and he does it brilliantly. At his side is Hildegarde, who is gradually getting older in terms of scenery, and vocally Carina Tybjerg Madsen exudes everything a great lover needs – in a sexual and maternal sense. Benjamin’s parents are convincingly portrayed by Michael Wagner and Gotho Griesmeier, Matthäus Schmidlechner gives contours to Doctor Keene, who is quite disturbed by the events (like all of us). Two newsboys (Jonathan Hartzendorf and Alexander York) keep coming through the scenery and announcing news, so we know exactly where we are in time. The choir and children’s choir, rehearsed by Elena Pierini, are also a force. Ingmar Beck conducts the Bruckner Orchestra superbly.
Highly professional review through the ages
Image source: Reinhard Winkler Febel and the protagonists on stage could not have wished for a better lawyer than the Linz State Theater director Hermann Schneider. In Dieter Richter’s stage design and Meentje Nielsen’s costumes, you can experience a highly professional revue through the ages, technically perfect, scenically with original nuances. Button, who is apparently currently fluctuating between two ages, suddenly has a hard time, at least – hopefully – probably for the last time. The frequent appearance of an itinerant preacher with the sign “The Last Judgment is Near” seems quite dialectical. And the singing stuffed animal quartet also offers philosophical wisdom and its own color dramaturgy. The first encounter between the young old man and his parents is hilarious again; the gentleman in the stroller asks for a cigar and a newspaper. In such a case, do you use the first name or use the “you” to be on the safe side?!?
Musical-theatrical polytheism
Basically, Linz’s “Benjamin Button” is music-theatrical polytheism, ideologically and compositionally, perhaps an odd, angular counterpart to Leoš Janáček’s opera “The Makropulos Affair”, with its main character who doesn’t want to die for eternity, but is able to. Reinhard Febel, Hermann Schneider and the great Linz ensemble show what can be created here and today: lively, entertaining, touching, clever musical theater!
Broadcast: “Leporello” on April 8, 2024 from 4:05 p.m. on BR-KLASSIK
2024-04-07 07:54:14
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