Despite the tremendous variety of approaches that directors have applied in the last quarter century, the intersection of opera and stand-up comedy remains largely unexplored. And perhaps for obvious reasons: stand-up, at its best, occupies a unique place on the border between scripted and improvisatory, while the tolerance for improvisation in opera is limited largely to the ornamentation of baroque arias. The obvious gulf between these two artforms made the new production of Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden something of an improbable success. By pairing comedian Bülent Ceylan with an excellent cast – led by the Konstanze of Adela Zaharia – the evening struck an unexpected balance between the familiar pleasures of Mozart’s music and the infectious laughter of a well-timed comedy routine.
The success of the evening was due, in part, to the presence of Mr Ceylan, who not only had the gift of working the crowd, but whose casual asides and knowing glances were instrumental in bringing the audience into the drama. Yet it was the concept of director Andrea Moses that allowed Mr Ceylan’s comic riffs to co-exist so naturally with the comedy of the libretto. It would be a huge oversimplification to say that Mr Ceylan was playing the role of Bassa Selim; rather, he was playing a stand-up comedian (very similar to himself) who was both participant in and observer of the action. His first appearance – after Belmonte’s opening aria – was very much as comedy superstar Bülent Ceylan, welcoming everyone, talking about how great it was to be at the Staatsoper, and getting the crowd warmed up with a few easy laughs.
If the staging had been content to replace the spoken dialogue of the libretto with comedy routines, the evening might soon have grown stale. Fortunately Ms Moses had other plans. Mr Ceylan pivoted quickly from comedian to commentator, and while his spoken interludes had the relentless pace and spontaneity of stand-up – they ranged from discussions of the characters to the occasional illogic of the German definite article – their content was increasingly geared towards highlighting (and often skewering) the more problematic aspects of the libretto. As a German comedian with Turkish ancestry, he was able to show up the absurdity of the story’s ‘eastern’ stereotypes with a light touch. When he did finally slide in to the role of Bassa Selim midway through the first act – replete with flowing robes, pointy shoes and what he described as a giant onion on his head – he played the role as self-conscious caricature … so much so that in the second act he even managed to do an impression of himself as Bassa Selim.
Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Thomas Guggeis, conductor. Andrea Moses, director. Berlin, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, June 2026. © 2026 by Staatsoper Unter den Linden.
While the questions of national stereotypes and cultural appropriation were important subjects of critique, they were perhaps less problematic than the toxic masculinity displayed by at least two of the characters. The staging responded by turning Bassa Selim into a more sympathetic figure: his attempts to console/seduce Konstanze in the second act – which involved offering a ride on his motorcycle, playing electric guitar, and showing off his collection of stamps – were all conspicuously noble, and he accepted her polite rejection with equal grace. The transformation of Bassa Selim into an essentially decent guy was matched by an intensification in the thuggish and violent qualities of Osmin, who emerged as the opera’s primary force of malevolence. Indeed, it was the eventual frustration of Osmin’s hatred, along with Bassa Selim’s final monologue in praise of tolerance, that brought the evening to its morally righteous conclusion.
Next to the effortless riffing of Mr Ceylan, the staging’s attempts at physical comedy sometimes felt laboured. A handful of arias were undermined by distracting background action, and there was an occasional overreliance on emphatic hand gestures; the treatment of Pedrillo’s song in the third act, while fitting broadly with the message of the evening, seemed the staging’s most obvious misstep. In its finest moments, however, the staging had a lightness of spirit that was only heightened by the fact that one couldn’t be entirely sure what was improvised and what was scripted. Much of this came down to the flexibility with which Mr Ceylan was able to step in and out of his role without disrupting the flow of the story. When Adela Zaharia’s ‘Martern aller Arten’ was (deservedly) greeted with sustained applause, Mr Ceylan suddenly broke character and started applauding along with the audience, causing Ms Zaharia to break character as well. Whether or not the moment was planned, it was a perfect encapsulation of an evening in which great performances could sit comfortably within a staging that refused to take itself too seriously.
Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Thomas Guggeis, conductor. Andrea Moses, director. Berlin, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, June 2026. © 2026 by Staatsoper Unter den Linden.
If Ms Zaharia’s ‘Martern’ was arguably the evening’s vocal high point, it was only the culmination of a performance that had been compelling from the very first note. Although the arrival of Bassa Selim’s superyacht midway through the first act had been an impressive piece of stagecraft, it was almost immediately overshadowed by Ms Zaharia’s ‘Ach ich liebte’, in which her considerable technical resources were placed in the service of an eloquent expression of sorrow. Her appealing clarity of tone and unaffectedly lyrical phrasing yielded a further highlight in the solemn recitative and aria that announce her plight in the second act, but it was the emphatic spirit of ‘Martern’, with its perfect balance between beauty of line and ferocity of feeling, that left the greatest impression.
The role of Belmonte seemed perfectly suited to the voice of Siyabonga Maqungo, who kicked off the evening with a gently optimistic ‘Hier soll ich dich denn sehen’ and followed it with an elegant ‘Konstanze, dich wiederzusehen’ in which the deliberate pace allowed for an engaging subtlety of phrasing. In addition to his finely-wrought arias, Mr Maqungo also contributed to a duet with Ms Zaharia’s Konstanze that was perhaps the highlight of the third act. As Pedrillo, Michael Laurenz offered a captivating performance suggesting that life in the service of Bassa Selim – and the constant threat of Osmin – had left him slightly unhinged. The undercurrent of volatility in his character resulted in a bracingly forthright ‘Frisch zum Kampfe’ that split the difference between confident swagger and all-or-nothing desperation. His song in the third act was notable for its precise detail and hushed delivery, but sadly it was one of the few moments in the staging most overshadowed by surrounding events.
Serafina Starke was a thoroughly charming Blonde, sufficiently caustic in her dealings with Osmin, and generally wary of her surroundings. Despite the triumphant delight she brought to ‘Welche Wonne’ she alone seemed unconvinced that the escape attempt had much chance of success. As Osmin, the opera’s lone voice of implacable intolerance, David Steffens was commandingly malicious. Although his duets with Belmonte (in the first act) and Blonde (in the second) were full of disdain, he managed to infuse even his relatively innocuous opening song ‘Wer ein Liebchen’ with an ill-concealed malice; and while his contribution to ‘Vivat Bacchus’ brought an unusually grim demeanour to the celebration of alcohol, it was the cruel delight in his third act aria ‘Oh, wie will ich triumphieren’ that offered the best summation of his character.
Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Thomas Guggeis, conductor. Andrea Moses, director. Berlin, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, June 2026. © 2026 by Staatsoper Unter den Linden.
Thomas Guggeis, conducting from the fortepiano, guided the Staatskapelle through a lean, agile performance that mostly kept the focus on the singers, but occasionally erupted into moments of invigorating splendour: in the conclusion of the ‘Marsch’ trio, the second act quartet and, especially, the bracing introduction to ‘Martern’ – in which many of the solo instrumentalists were given a few bars to shine – the orchestra emerged as a mighty force, as propulsive and joyous as any of the vocal performances. Yet the playing was just as often notable for its restraint. Although the cymbals, bass drum and triangle were on prominent display – on the side of the stage rather than in the pit – Mr Guggeis tended to favour understatement over obvious effect.
Despite the high quality of the musical performances it was perhaps inevitable that attention would remain focussed on the deeply charismatic Bülent Ceylan; yet it is to the immense credit of everyone involved (including Mr Ceylan himself) that he did not overshadow the opera around him. Anyone who had come to the Staatsoper simply to hear some Mozart would not have been disappointed. What Mr Ceylan brought to the evening was precisely what every great stand-up comedian must do: he warmed us up and made us ready to laugh. And by keeping us laughing – at the characters, at the stereotypes, at the absurdity of it all – he allowed the humanity of Mozart’s opera to shine forth all the more clearly.
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