Jesus Christ Superstar - Essen - Opening Night - September 9th 2006

I love opening nights! Seeing the first performance of a new show is exciting. You have no idea what to expect because obviously there haven't been any reviews of the show so far. I went to the opening night of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Aalto Theater in Essen with an open mind. I've seen other productions of JCS and not all of them have been really good. But generally I like the show... great story, great songs and great characters.

In this case the whole show is very modern.... so, no sandalled people with palm leafs on stage. I usually like modern stagings. And all in all I did like the way this production was put together. The whole set desing was awesome. They have a really huge stage at the Aalto Theater. Parts of the stage can be lifted or countersunk and they really made use of these possibilities. Then there was this fantastic lighting.... extremely well done for this show! However I wasn't impressed with the acoustics. The music seemed too loud compared to the voices so sometimes it was hard to even understand what people on stage were saying.

The costumes were alright except for the Soulgirls. They looked like the missing siblings of the Kelly Family!!
And then there were some scenes I just didn't like at all. "Jesus Christ Superstar" (the song) ended with Judas and Jesus doing some kind of weird choreographie which made Jesus look like a Clown. The temple scene was set in a "christmas consumption orgy"... very strange. As I said... I'm all for new interpretation but this just seemed a bit too weird. For people who don't know the show (and are not too familiar with the bible) it was probably hard to understand what was going on.

And one of the worst things: The last supper. There were the apostels... but no wine, no bread and no table.... all they had were several beer crates. Looked more like the last boozing party than the last supper to me.

Now on to the cast....

Judas: Serkan Kaya
Well, where do I start? All in all I can say that I enjoyed his performance... at least most of it. I will always have certain "problems" with his voice. He does have a great voice... it's just that the way he sings doesn't fit to every song. Because of the rather bad acoustics inside the theatre it was hard to impossible to hear what he was singing... and this was partly because of the way he sings. I know the songs Judas sings but I prefer to acctually understand the words while watching a show. Some of the rather high parts of the songs came out more in a scream than in singing. Not too happy with that.
His acting on the other hand was faultless. Very convincing!

Jesus: Henrik Wager
Great voice! And his acting was really good as well. I was very impressed with the way he portrayed Jesus. His Gethsemane was good... but nothing outstanding. I have heard better versions of this song in the past. Still, a great voice.

Maria Magdalena: Valerie Scott
In this show she deserves to be called "the voice"! Her "I don't know how to love him" was amazing. Unfortunately the part itself was quite small in this production. I remember other shows where Maria definitely had a bigger part and wasn't acting at the background that much.

Simon: Kai Hüsgen
To be honest I only really noticed him during his song. That one was very well sung though. :)

Petrus: Japheth Myers
This has to be the first time I ever heard him sing... and I mean REALLY sing. And all I can say is: Wow! There is something in his voice that touches me. I was probably sitting there with the biggest smile on my face while listening to him singing.
His acting in this (rather small) part was great. All in all one of the stars on stage in my eyes!

Kaiphas: Michael Haag
Great low voice. ;) Totally convincing in the part!

Hannas: Philippe Ducloux
Really liked him in the part. He acted very (hyper)active which made it a lot of fun to watch him on stage. His voice is quite unusual (at least in this show) but it fits the way he plays the whole character.

Pilatus: Erin Caves
Great performance. Probably one of the strongest voices on stage.

König Herodes: Rüdiger Frank
I admit I was a little surprised when he came on stage. Rüdiger Frank is a person of short stature. But he was only small when it comes to body height. He played the character really well and his voice was fantastic.

Ensemble
I can't name all of them... 2 names that I remember are Michelle Escano and Heather Shockley. Think I need to buy a programme. ;)
However, everyone put on a great performance. I can't say there was anything I didn't like about the ensemble. :)

So, as I mentioned above this was all in all an enjoyable and interesting evening. But still this production is not as outstanding as it could be. There are too many things I didn't like to call it a really great show.