Musical Summer Kufstein

“Sister Act”: A little dance with the Pope

Siyou Isabelle Ngnoubamdjum.

(Bild: Victor Klein)

Musicalsommer Kufstein impresses with a fabulous production of "Sister Act". Guests at the premiere were swept away by the music and thanked with much applause.

The story of "Sister Act" is well known and therefore quickly told: The somewhat down-and-out bar singer Deloris van Cartier has involuntarily witnessed a murder and now has to go into the witness protection program until the trial of her ex-boyfriend, a mafia boss. Eddie, a policeman who is secretly in love with Deloris, takes the sharp-tongued singer with a big heart to the place where you would least expect her: a Benedictine nunnery.

The right ingredients for a very good musical
Things get really exciting and entertaining when Deloris arrives at the convent of the nuns, which is still closed off from the outside world, and clashes with the Mother Superior, whom she subsequently calls "Mutti", for the first time.

In its third edition after "Evita" and "Jesus Christ Superstar", the Kufstein Musical Summer has noticeably improved with this production and shows how the musical format can work if you create the right basic conditions for it. Despite a playing time (including the interval) of over three and a half hours, which is a real strain on the seat without the cushions you brought along, and the slight lengths at the beginning of the plot, you feel more than entertained and perfectly at home in the unique ambience of Kufstein Fortress.

Soon the Pope is dancing along.

(Bild: Victor Klein)

Elaborate stage design, matching costumes
The elaborate stage design and matching costumes, created by Julia Neuhold, a well-known stage and costume designer from the Tiroler Landestheater, ensure this. The change of scenery - from the dimly lit, sleazy "Pennies Bar", to a secluded backyard as the scene of the murder, to the church and monastery - is carried out smoothly and quickly by the actors within the scenes, as all the stage elements are on reels.

Performers surpass themselves in solo interludes
After "Evita", the musical director is once again Oswald Sallaberger. Sallaberger, known as a renowned violinist and Wagner interpreter, seems to enjoy his foray into the musical genre and is extremely pleased with it, which benefits the audience during the vocal interludes and allows some of the performers to almost surpass themselves during their solo interludes. Milan-born Vanni Viscusi has a lot to do as choreographer in this piece. A major task here is certainly to harmonize the physically and age-wise different "nuns" through dance. He has evidently succeeded in doing this admirably.

The young Carolin Waltsgott.

(Bild: Berger Hubert)

Well-known director for decades
All this is controlled and coordinated by Michael Lerchenberg. Lerchenberg, who has been known primarily in German-speaking countries for decades, is an actor, director, screenwriter and artistic director. Among other things, he teaches acting and musicals at the August Everding Theater Academy in Munich. Lerchenberg, who has already staged several musicals in his life, relies on a basic rule from Otto Schenk, who once said: 50 percent of success is the cast and 50 percent is the applause direction.

Perfectly selected cast of roles 
It is an exciting, great cast that will bring joy to heaven and earth nine more times until August 11 with atmospheric chorales and rocking pop songs and even get the Pope to dance at the end. To list them all would go beyond the scope of this article.

Siyou Isabelle Ngnoubamdjum in the leading role of bar singer Deloris Van Cartier, who inadvertently mutates into Sister Mary Clarence. A great gospel singer who, although not her main profession, is also a convincing actress. Her congenial counterpart, the Munich actress Viola von der Burg, as the initially stern abbess. The young musical actress Carolin Waltsgott, who not only looks strikingly like the film's sister Mary Robert, Wendy Makkena, but also plays her on an equal footing. And ex-Eurovision participant Eric Papilaya as the singing, love-struck policeman Eddie Souther.