Ruling bullies are back in fashion and in power. This type of man cleans up, overthrows, takes action, takes out; and he feels great, young and cheerfully destructive in the process. King Belshazzar was also a bully, a monster ruler in the Middle East in biblical times ...
In the frenzy of a courtly feast, King Belshazzar mocks the Jewish god Jehovah: "I am the king of Babylon!" Around midnight, a riddle flickers on the wall: MENE, MENE, TEKEL UPHARSIN. No one can interpret the signs. The wise Queen Mother wants to consult the Jewish prophet Daniel. He is fetched - interprets the signs. MENE: The God you blasphemed has numbered your days and is ending them. TEKEL: You have been weighed and found too light. UPHARSIN: Your kingdom will be divided between Medes and Persians. The oratorio ends as prophesied - with the death of the ruffian king and the happy liberation of the Babylonian and Jewish people from his rule.
Herbert Fritsch - back again! - finds ideal material in this material. Fritsch transforms the legendary story of King Belshazzar from an oratorio-like habitus into a wild dance. His unleashed theater chases the characters through various emotional roller coasters: pride and joy, love and hate, hope and hubris, horror and panic. All these emotional spaces can be heard in Handel's oratorio. Fritsch filters the motifs for his horrifying body play from the particles finely eavesdropped from the baroque composition. "Everything must be brought into a raging order." This motto by Antonin Artaud could well preside over the Handel-Fritsch evening at the Komische Oper Berlin. You can be curious - Fritsch is too.
Premiere March 28
Further performances: April 3, 5, 19 and 25, May 1 and 8, 2026
