Eika Katappa

Sigmund and Sieglinde, Quasimodo and Esméralda, Carmen and Don José and many others – scenes of tragic love are performed to the operatic and popular music but all the actors grotesquely overplay their roles so the tragedy gradually turns into the farce. A key phrase "Life is very precious, even right now", that the dying heroes and heroines pronounce with their last expiration, sounds as a subtle derision in the context of this musical black comedy. Endless repetition of the preposterous love scenes and tortuous interconnection of the fragmentary mosaic pieces turn Eikka Katappa into an extremely mannered allegorical pastische. And all this elaborately wrought suite of bizarreness in the end becomes a pure aesthetic delight.