August Everding academy turns War and Peace into electro-pop spectacle

Students at Munich’s August Everding Theater Academy have turned Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace into a fast-paced electro-pop musical staged as a lavish club night. The production, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, has won over audiences, BR reports.

Directed by Philipp Moschitz at the Prinzregententheater in Munich, the show focuses less on the war against Napoleon’s Grande Armée than on love and jealousy among Moscow’s party-loving aristocracy. The staging places the characters in a fetish-club atmosphere, where they flirt, fight duels and torment one another.

Dave Malloy’s unusual “electro-pop opera” was first presented in the United States in 2012. Its European and German-language premiere took place in Linz in February 2023. Rather than conventional musical theatre melodies, the score relies on rhythm and spoken singing, with rap, techno and dance music.

The choreography by Sven Niemeyer keeps the cast moving at a relentless pace. The performers, students in the academy’s third and fourth years, sustain the electro-beat-driven show for almost three hours. In one energetic scene, a nighttime sleigh ride through Moscow takes the cast into the audience.

The production’s costumes combine punk and aristocratic styles. Translator Roman Hinze has the cast sing about throwing glasses against the wall, while an accordion adds a folk touch to the band. Conductor Andreas Kowalewitz leads the musicians and an additional ensemble that joins the action on stage.

The show begins with a sung list of characters, a guide to the tangled relationships in Tolstoy’s novel. At its centre is the sensitive Natasha, played by Valentina Pohl, who falls for Anatol, a penniless and self-centred womaniser played by David Weinert. After a painful disappointment, the withdrawn Pierre, played by Bjarne Rentz, comes to her aid. The article notes that Tolstoy was said to identify most with Pierre, the selfless benefactor and quiet observer.

The comet named in the musical’s title is said to have appeared in 1811 and 1812.