A teenager in a green hoodie skateboards onto the stage, where a structure made of old-world furniture, piled high, creates a towering backdrop. He produces a violin and plays a familiar tune. A wardrobe door swings open and out pours the populace of a Russian shtetl, circa 1905. This is the startling opening of Fiddler on the Roof (retitled Anatevka, as per German tradition), staged by Barrie Kosky for the Komische Oper Berlin.
Kosky’s production—which premiered during the Komische Oper’s 70th-anniversary season, in 2017, and comes back into repertory tonight—was timely, given the issues of diaspora and immigration confronting Germany, along with its recent struggles with resurgent anti-Semitism. One critic thought that the set, by Rufus Didwiszus and Jan Freese, resembled a storehouse of Jewish possessions confiscated by the Nazis. Others were shaken by the first-act finale, in which thugs befoul a wedding celebration with overturned milk churns. The final breakup of Anatevka, the musical’s fictional Ukrainian village, occurs in a bleak, empty winter landscape.
