“Unforgotten, even if it was an era ago: In November 2019 - weeks before the FR published the title “New Virus causes worries” for the first time - the American director R. B. Schlather took the Bockenheimer depot as purist as it was sensational for Georg Friedrich Händel's Tamerlano.”
— Frankfurter Rundschau, September 2021
TAMERLANO
November 2019 \ Oper Frankfurt, Bockenheimer Depot \ opera by Händel \ director R. B. Schlather \ conductor Karsten Januschke \ set Paul Steinberg \ costume Doey Lüthi \ light Marcel Heyde \ dramaturge Mareike Wink \ assistant Hans Walter Richter \ photographs Monika Rittershaus \ with Lawrence Zazzo, Yves Saelens, Liz Reiter, Liviu Holender, Brennan Hall, and Cecelia Hall
“The European debut of the young New York director R.B. Schlather packs an intense mind game at the highest level… Not only the grand finale, all of Schlather's work that evening turned out to be brilliant for him. Tamerlano transports a density of emotions that no one should miss.”
— Frankfurter Neue Presse
“The American director R.B. Schlather turns the whole room into a playing field and forces the audience to take a stand. How long does Tamerlano's actions amuse us? How long do we ignore other people's suffering? When should we intervene?”
— Badische Neueste Nachrichten
“Tamerlano”, written in 1724, is Handel's darkest, boldest opera, its starting point is a historical event: the campaign of the Mongol khan Tamerlane, who defeated the Turkish sultan Bajazet in 1402 and then took him with him in a cage. The American director R.B. Schlather and his set designer Paul Steinberg take up this point of departure for the plot, which is otherwise fictitious in every detail, and transfer the performers and the audience into a whitewashed bunker illuminated by cold neon light…Placed on the playing area: an oversized wire mesh cage, in which Tamerlano initially locks the orchestra and conductor before he - murderous psychopath and entertaining show-master rolled into one - throws his prisoners into a macabre game full of hatred and despair with and against each other… In harmony with Händel, Schlather developed the drama very impressively entirely from music. Nothing distracts from her - no colors, no videos, no pop - and no political updates either. Schlather concentrates on the essentials, lays down the characters, their emotions, their psychology, as it were with the naked scanner, on the bare stage…A great evening, which puts the music in the center of attention and thus attests to its scenic effect.”
— Opernwelt January 2020
“It doesn’t feel good when you step through the newly laid out corridors in the Bockenheimer Depot in Frankfurt into the hermetic-looking auditorium with its high white walls and neon lighting. On the stage of this bunker designed by Paul Steinberg stands a large cage, the door of which is opened without a word by a cheerfully dancing guy with a mustache, glasses and cowboy hat and then waves to the stage the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra, who walks orderly in to applause and lets themselves be locked away without resistance. The cowboy leaves no doubt that this will be his game.
The risky, disrespectful directional approach outlined in this way works in the end. Because the characters come close to the audience, not only in the literal sense, as they sometimes mix with them in the interplay of stage illusion and disillusion, fiction and reality, it becomes tangible how much the characters in the play and how often everyone is condemned to watch. The laugh gets stuck in your throat at the end. The countertenor Lawrence Zazzo goes into the eccentric role and reveals the wild, absurdity of the role with flying colors, not only in the frenzied coloratura. The immense, long death scene after the poison suicide is staged by R.B. Schlather with Handel's courage, and thanks to Yves Saelens it is so vivid that it makes sense that even Tamerlano is shocked and realizes that he has become the loser of his game with everyone. A Lieto fine feels different, as the final ensemble, which is gradually reduced to the pure singing voices in the Frankfurt production, shows. The whole thing results from the unified performance of everyone at the highest vocational and performance level.”
— Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 2019
