Symphonicity: 2010/11

A big spectacle around big hits...

Sting successfully gives old songs a new orchestral guise at Stuttgart's Schleyerhalle.

So that's him too. Pop goes classical. On Saturday evening, Sting presented his fans with a selection of his global hits together with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra in a nearly sold-out Schleyerhalle. For two and a half hours, the English musician and singer, along with extremely enthusiastic orchestral musicians, demonstrated that he also likes things a bit more spectacular. And he can do it, too. The audience responded with boundless enthusiasm.

What hasn't he done? Time and again, Sting surprised the music world with new experiments. Sometimes he took his fans into the world of jazz, sometimes he toured again with "Police," and last year, he captivated a hand-picked audience with his full beard at his only German concert of "If On A Winter's Night" in Baden-Baden with quiet, ethereal folk ballads.

But this year's 'Symphonicity Tour' is all about the big stuff again, including the big hits: 'Roxanne,' 'Russians,' or 'Every Breath.' You could say they've heard it all a thousand times. But the approximately 8,000 people who came to the Schleyerhalle are obviously all fans and want exactly those hits, just differently. After all, everyone knows: playing his songs according to a formula isn't Sting's thing. Perhaps that's why he's already received such enthusiastic applause in advance when he takes the stage, youthfully clean-shaven and in tailored black, right after the orchestra musicians and their conductor, Steven Mercurio.

Then it starts off rich and broad: 'Magic,' 'Englishman in New York' - Sting sings with his unmistakable voice, the strings pluck, everything is light, but it doesn't quite rock the audience. The Brit and the crowd of musicians need three songs to really get into their stride; But then the aging 'Roxanne' comes along, gently carried by quiet guitar sounds and supple strings, and thus becomes a young, unknown beauty again.

The hits follow one after the other; only Sting's introductions to the songs, brief explanations of their origins, interrupt the flow of musical variety, which the singer traverses in vocal top form: the orchestra, under the committed leadership of its prancing conductor, makes your stomach tremble with bombastic 'Russians'; Sting presents 'Whenever I Say Your Name' with co-singer Jo Lawry in a symphonic, jazzed-up way, although she almost steals the show if Sting couldn't hold the notes to the limit. After an interval heralded by a standing ovation, '1000 Years' draws on Irish folk; musical drama, including a comical on-screen Nosferatu, 'Moon over Bourbon Street' drains the old blood; An unusually confident 'King of Pain' tears the audience out of their seats, and finally, with 'Desert Rose' celebrated as a spectacle, the musicians play themselves and everyone else almost into a rapturous faint.

© Schwäbische Post by Dagmar Oltersdorf