Cast a Diva

When Dagmar Manzel played the big roles up and down at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, she was a star. But it was only when she opened up the world of operetta and musical together with Barrie Kosky in pieces such as Kiss me, Kate, Ball in the Savoy, The Pearls of Cleopatra or Sweeney Todd at the Komische Oper Berlin that she became an acclaimed diva. Finnish composer and jazz pianist Iiro Rantala also saw her as such on stage and was so impressed that he wrote a song game for her together with his librettist Minna Lindgren: Cast a Diva — and anyone who believes they discover a word play with a famous aria from Bellini's Norma is not entirely wrong.

This evening — with the active support of her wonderful actor colleague Sylvester Groth — Dagmar Manzel will play a character who she is not herself, but who she could be if she wasn't herself. And this other design by Dagmar Manzel, which bears no resemblance to her, learns one day that there are people around her who believe they have to address their advancing age. Not with her! Have you ever seen a diva go out of the skin?

With fury, wit and melancholy, Rantala, Lindgren and director Ingo Kerkhof talk about the delights and torments of a diva who reaches an age when being a diva is no longer so easy. For the swinging soundtrack, Iiro Rantala personally sits at the piano every evening — complemented by a handpicked little jazz combo.