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„The newly reinterpreted musical "My Fair Lady" at Essen's Aalto Theater provides excellent entertainment. Eliza now learns German for the naturalization test. Ilaria Lanzino's fast-paced production, adorned with sophisticated dance interludes, tells a new story.

 

Originally, the plot revolves around an experiment connected to a bet, aiming to transform the simple London flower girl Eliza into a lady through speech training. Ilaria Lanzino brings the young woman to Germany, where she wants to be naturalized. She encounters the rigorous phonetics professor Henry Higgins, who now has to teach her proper German instead of eradicating her dialect. The highlight of the German-language production lies in the contrast between the noble, nostalgic world of the professor, appearing in a bathrobe, and the crowded, gray waiting room of a German immigration office. (…) Top-notch entertainment.“

 

Ruhr Nachrichten

 

„The second premiere of the current season at the Aalto Music Theater provides top-notch entertainment: the musical classic "My Fair Lady" can be seen in a new production by Ilaria Lanzino and is undoubtedly recommended for fans of lively tunes and fast-paced stage designs. Director Ilaria Lanzino succeeds in giving her Essen production a very special charm. There are contemporary references, dancing letters in an immigration office, and a modern Eliza Doolittle, masterfully portrayed at the premiere by the young soprano Mercy Malieloa, a member of the Aalto Music Theater ensemble since 2022.“

 

Lokalkompass

 

„An amusing production of "My Fair Lady" with migrant elements succeeds at the Aalto Theater in Essen. (…) Because language can either grant or deny access to a society, Ilaria Lanzino gives the classic musical "My Fair Lady" a migrant background. The director moves a bit closer to the social criticism of Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion." (…) It's delightful that Eliza is introduced to high society not at a horse race but at a “Lohengrin” premiere, presumably in Bayreuth, with Angela Merkel in attendance.“

 Westfälischer Anzeiger

 

„Origin or language? What determines our place in society? The central question of the piece is reexamined from a contemporary perspective by the Pisa-born director Ilaria Lanzino, a trained Germanist, in her first work at the Aalto Theater: language as a living, changeable phenomenon in the encounter of diverse cultures. In her production, Eliza, who maneuvers her rolling suitcase through the stalls and asks a visitor for help to lift it onto the stage, is a Portuguese-speaking high school graduate from Brazil. She has to finance her London studies with jobs while learning a new language on the side: "Language makes the person, not the origin," knows the phonetics professor.

 

This provided Robert Gilbert, who translated Alan Jay Lerner's text into German, ample opportunity to humorously highlight the pitfalls of the German language for all foreigners. Despite cell phones, the stage by Turkish designer Emine Güner, with its light arches, recalls the 1950s. It contrasts Higgins' very British study with the cold atmosphere of German offices and crowded waiting areas. (…) Celebrated with standing ovations.“

 

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