Review: Viulunsoittaja katolla
Everyone loves Tevye
Talk about betting on a safe bet. Fiddler on the Roof is not only Finland’s most performed musical: the Helsinki City Theatre’s Finnish premiere in 1966 was performed 446 times to an audience of 320,000 pairs of eyes.
An unbeatable record of its kind and when it now came up on the repertoire for the first time since then, 35,000 tickets had been sold for this autumn’s performances even before the premiere on 29.8.
How lucky then that it is not only one of the world’s most popular but also the best musicals. Everyone loves the kind-hearted, everyday philosophical milk-delivery man Tevye, who quarrels with his God and his wife and vacillates in the cross-border between the rigorous regulations of the village community and a reason-based humanity against the backdrop of anti-Semitic winds and the breakthrough of new ideals in early 20th-century Russia.
Joseph Stein’s libretto balances in a rare way between humour and tragedy, emotion and satire, and Sheldon Harnick’s snappy lyrics are an optimal match to Jerry Bock’s unforgettable music, which mixes klezmer, Russian folk and more traditional musical tones in a way that can only be described as timeless.
Of flesh and blood
This musical stands and falls to an unusually high degree with its protagonist and Esko Roine, who was already in the cast in 1966, is a true hit in a role where you have to have skin on your nose and years on your neck, credibly walk a balance between mischievous and serious drama and also have your vocal cords perfectly calibrated.
Roine’s Tevye is neither a compliant nor a domestic tyrant, but a man of flesh and blood who, in a credible way, like the fiddler on the rooftop, tries to keep the balance between the obligation of tradition and the voice of conscience, and who expresses his feelings in a suitably stylized song.
Otherwise , Hans Berndtsson’s well-oiled direction and Rebecca Evanne’s ditto choreography roll on like a train. It is technically impressive and well-timed, and the only small objection can be cited as perhaps an unnecessarily advanced machinery in an ultimately quite intimate story. A slightly smaller drum would have been enough to keep the pace.
Frictionless collective
The other roles in the frictionless collective also felt precisely managed. Above all, Riitta Havukainen as Tevye’s ample wife Golde, and also Anna-Maija Tuokko (Tzeitel), Raili Raitala (Hodel) and Marika Westerling (Chava) as the rebellious and extraordinarily beautiful singing daughters.
Among the men, we note, among others: Tuukka Leppänen’s winning interpretation of the equally charming and witty revolutionary Perchik and, of course, the fiddler himself, Toivo Rolser, who is gratefully given space with the fault at the ready.
Perhaps Anatevka is located somewhere in the vicinity of Vitebsk. Ralf Forsström’s airy set design evoked the world of Chagall and you really only missed the occasional airborne cow.
The superbly musical 19-person sinfonietta – conducted on Wednesday by second conductor Risto Kupiainen – put the golden edge on a memorable Fiddler in many ways.