The heart

Summary

How does theatre actually exert its impact? This happens on two different time levels: in the moment of performance, and in the memory. When I was a young actor, older colleagues of mine told me of their times spent working for Max Reinhardt in his legendary productions. Their memories were so powerful that they had tears in their eyes and could barely continue to speak. After more than half a century! Reinhardt had left a mark on them for the rest of their lives. I even suspect that time had intensified their emotional response, far beyond the original impression.

And am I any different? One of the most beautiful performances I have ever seen was Giorgio Strehler's production of Goldoni's Le baruffe chiozzotte (Brawling in Chioggia). I vividly remember the end of it – the reconciliation among the poor fishermen after all the commotion and the quarrels, illuminated by the light of simple lanterns while night descends over the autumnal, misty-grey Adriatic; and then there was the Cogitore, representing Goldoni himself as a junior lawyer, dressed in a wine-red coat (the only colour in the otherwise grey image), slowly drawing the curtain on it all. And when I describe it, I too am overwhelmed again and again by the sheer emotional power of the performance, even though it now lies almost fifty years in the past.

The fact that I came to opera was also thanks to such an experience. I was still in acting school and was auditioning in Berlin for a well-known theatre intendant (that's a title in Germany given to the administrative/artistic manager of a theatre or opera house). Obviously I wasn't too bad, because his assistant said he had two free tickets for an opera that same evening and asked if I would join him. Opera – what a dreadful thought! For a would-be actor to be interested in opera was something totally unfitting. But I wanted to be hired, so I said yes. And then, to my surprise, after a long opera performance I found myself breathless, with my heart pounding, right on the edge of my seat in the stalls.