'Beethoven 2.0': Director Gil Mehmert strips away European trappings for Korean audiences

Gil Mehmert, director of the musical "Beethoven," has overhauled the production — reworking its story, music and staging to resonate with Korean sensibilities. The show runs at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts through Aug. 11.

Gil Mehmert, director of the musical "Beethoven" [Yonhap]

"Mozart wanted to be loved. He was a kind of pop star. But Beethoven was different — he was an artist who thought about the future rather than the applause of the moment."

German director Gil Mehmert, returning to Seoul with the musical "Beethoven," drew that contrast to explain his vision for the show. Where Mozart was a genius who lived for the present, Beethoven was a revolutionary who composed for generations yet to come — and that distinction, Mehmert said, is the narrative direction this production is reaching for.

EMK Musical Company's "Beethoven" is back on stage, but Mehmert refuses to call it a revival. He describes the new production as "Beethoven 2.0" — a transformation that goes beyond a relaunch. Taking to heart the criticisms raised after the premiere and the responses of Korean audiences, the creative team has overhauled everything from the story structure and music to character arcs and the visual language of the stage.

Beethoven's artistic muse takes center stage

The most significant change is the shift in the story's central axis. Where the premiere focused on the mystery surrounding Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved" letter, this season turns inward — toward the inner life of Beethoven the man and his struggle as an artist.

The role of Toni — played by Kim Ji-woo, Kim Ji-hyun and Yoon Gong-ju in rotation — has been fundamentally reimagined. Mehmert said he repositioned Toni "not as a romantic counterpart, but as the force that propels Beethoven to his next stage." She becomes an emotional companion who helps a Beethoven crumbling under the terror of losing his hearing find his way back to music.

"In the last season we focused on the 'Immortal Beloved' letter, but this time I wanted to show Beethoven's inner conflict, his fear of losing his hearing, and how he overcomes it."

At the heart of that transformation is Symphony No. 9, the "Choral." Mehmert was drawn to the fact that Beethoven — a man who spent his life consumed by anger and distrust — chose, at the very end, to write a work that sang of unity for all of humanity.

"Beethoven was a person full of rage who found it very hard to trust people. And yet at the end he created music that embraces the entire world. I think that is a deeply important message for our time as well."

Actor Hong Gwang-ho, who joins the cast of the new production of "Beethoven" [EMK Musical Company]

Affair subplot cut, production recast for Korean audiences

A central priority of this season has been absorbing the emotional sensibility of Korean audiences. Mehmert said the premiere "was built on European sensibility and the grammar of 19th-century literature," and that over the past three years he came to understand how that sensibility felt unfamiliar — and at times uncomfortable — to Korean audiences.

The original production centered on the relationship between Beethoven and Toni, a married woman. In European literary tradition, a story about a woman seeking freedom from the institution of marriage reads as a natural narrative, but Mehmert concluded that for Korean audiences it functioned as a barrier to emotional engagement.

"We approached it as a question of women's freedom and liberation, but we came to realize it is an extremely sensitive element in Korea."

In the process, the creative team made the bold decision to strip away the "Immortal Beloved" mystery that had been a cornerstone of the premiere. The European detective-story structure — tracing the letter's journey through Prague, Teplitz and Karlsbad — failed to draw Korean audiences in deeply enough, Mehmert decided. "In Europe it is a very well-known story, but for Korean audiences the distances between those cities and the context itself were simply unfamiliar," he said. "So we cut it decisively."

Much of the European symbolism in the staging has also been revised. A scene from the premiere featuring a bathtub filled with money is a prime example. Mehmert said it worked as a metaphor within the conventions of European theater, but Korean audiences found it implausible.

"The producer told me, 'Korean audiences don't understand why there's a bathtub in a Viennese café.' I learned a great deal about cultural difference from that moment."

Overhauled score gives original compositions a larger share

The music has been extensively reworked as well. Where the premiere leaned heavily on variations and arrangements of Beethoven's original compositions, this season significantly expands the share of original numbers by composer Sylvester Levay. Mehmert said he wanted to blend Beethoven's musical world with Levay's into a single whole. "I hope audiences won't think, 'This is Beethoven's music' or 'This is Levay's music.' I wanted it to sound like one musical language."

A substantial number of new numbers have been added to the score. Mehmert said he had not counted precisely, but estimated the split at roughly 50-50, or perhaps 60-40.

"Für Elise," which drew criticism from some audience members over its arrangement in the premiere, has been cut entirely. Mehmert said he was startled when he first heard the melody used as the baggage cart announcement chime at a Korean airport. "I realized that music carries different memories in different cultures," he said. "Some melodies are already so strongly tied to an everyday image that you cannot separate them."

Park Hyo-shin and Hong Gwang-ho are double-cast in the title role. Hong spent nearly six months practicing piano for four hours a day to prepare. Mehmert said he sees in Hong an actor who pushes himself the way Robert De Niro transformed his body for "Raging Bull" and "Taxi Driver."

The two leads bring entirely different textures to the role, in Mehmert's view. Park draws inner strength out of delicacy, while Hong reveals a hidden fragility beneath a powerful exterior. "Both actors arrive at Beethoven from completely different directions," Mehmert said. "That is what makes it so fascinating."

"Beethoven" uses the life of a great artist to examine what role art can play in the lives of human beings. That is why "Beethoven 2.0" keeps its focus on the music the immortal composer wanted to leave for future generations. In times of war and political turmoil, Mehmert said, art must be not the dessert of life but the main course.

"Politicians like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin — the figures shaking the world today, the dictators starting wars — will fade into history in a few years. But Beethoven's music will remain. When I go home, I listen to Beethoven, not to a Trump speech. Music is a universal language that unites all people — it needs no translation. That is why I am here in Seoul. Because music can make us one."

shee@heraldcorp.com