Who actually wrote the “Elegy to the Death of a Poodle”? Of…
a) Wolf Biermann
b) Ludwig van Beethoven
c) Michael Aufhauser from
Good aiderbichl
d) Coco Chanel
You can now take the 50:50 chance, try the audience joker or the phone joker. But you can also simply go to the Stefaniensaal Graz or the Konzerthaus Klagenfurt and hear Angelika Kirchschlager sing with tears in her eyes:
“You were so clean of all deceit and error /
As black as your frizzy silk hair…”
In this case, Goethe (or whatever this famous composer is called) would have said: “So this is the poodle’s death!”. But you don’t have to be on the dog to think: Wow! Serious music can be pretty funny.
In any case, Kirchschlager expressly proves this in her program “Tod eines Pudels”, presented for the first time in 2018, commissioned by the Wiener Konzerthaus for its series “Classic meets comedy”. She developed the pastiche full of humor in classical music in a duo with one of Austria’s leading humor special correspondents: Alfred Dorfer.
The cabaret artist is very classical, even if “my piano teacher went into the next room and came back with a smell of alcohol when I played Bach”, as he admits about his beginnings. Six years of lessons wasn’t enough for a career as a professional musician. But in his cabaret projects Dorfer occasionally used the accordion, and in 2020 he celebrated his – highly successful – premiere as an opera director at the Theater an der Wien with “Figaro”.
In “Tod des Pudels” the unable “Mozart from the municipal building” is allowed to turn over the sheet music for the great song accompanist Julius Drake, maybe play a little on the grand piano himself or sing a weird “Heidschi Bumbeidschi”.
Kirchschlager, in turn, enables him in an instant singing workshop for the duet “How do I come in at the door?” – a folk song not by the Weight Watchers, but by Johannes Brahms. And the mezzo-soprano quarrels in the musical song “Sexy Lady” with a wink with her eternal trouser roles.
Between Dorfer and Kirchschlager there is a wonderful ping-pong of anecdotes from both genres in this satirical evening of songs. Horrible wardrobes, indisposed artists, politicians dabbling about art or nonsense during the breaks… In any case, it’s always a curious personal experience, as Dorfer emphasizes, “nothing is invented in the play”.
Advertised as a “ghost train ride through the weird backgrounds of the industry”, “Death of a Poodle” is also a delicious declaration of love for classical music. And the humor anyway.