Martina Gedeck makes her debut at the Semperoper as Mephisto's antagonist

As "A Woman", actress Martina Gedeck ("Helgoland") will stand up to the devil on the stage of the Saxon State Opera in October. The 63-year-old will make her debut at the Dresden Semperoper in this role at the premiere of Arrigo Boito's opera "Mefistofele" on September 28. "My character is the antagonist of Mephisto," Gedeck told the German Press Agency. "I am the one who says that life exists and makes sense, with everything that goes with it." Director Eva-Maria-Höckmayr added the role to the production of the 19th-century work based on Goethe's Faust poems.

Gretchen's fate in this opera is focused on just one scene, the dungeon scene, where she faces death. "The other four acts are only indirectly about love and her," said Gedeck. And the divine principle is only told from the off. Faust, with Mephisto as a mirror figure, is a driven man, cannot find peace, cannot locate himself anywhere and remains unredeemed until the end.

The opposing principle is "the creative, the life-oriented, the devotion, the openness, the empathy", Gedeck described her part. In this way, she repeatedly takes on the inner form of Faust or Mephisto from time to time, sometimes speaking from their souls. "The texts are what Faust is feeling at the moment or could apply to Mephisto or Margarete." The nameless woman she plays brings to the fore "what is tangible in the opera, but not necessarily visible".

Gedeck has been working with musicians for years

Gedeck is familiar with working in the musical field, having combined language and music in her own projects such as concert readings and pieces with orchestra for years. "That's a good prerequisite for the opera stage," she says. Unlike acting, you are bound to the music, which she has always liked. "The music provides structure, rhythm, atmosphere", without it you are "more in free fall".

In the combination of text and music, her speaking becomes musical and the music begins to speak, she said. "Both correspond with each other and act on the background of the other." In Dresden, Gedeck performs "oratorically" between the acts, with original texts from Faust as a kind of leitmotif - so Goethe has his say in Italian music theater.

Working among musicians and singers as a privilege

Working on the opera is "exciting and enriching", said Gedeck. It is a privilege to work as an actress among musicians and singers. "When you stand on the stage of an opera house like this, it really blows you away."