Warning right now to the faint of heart/huge Stuttgart fans/easily offended: this is my favorite current production; however, that does NOT mean that I adore everything and everyone in it, and I'm as quick to mention stuff I dislike as I am to mention stuff I like. Stating my (albeit critical) opinion =/= bashing and I'm completely free to express the former, AFAIK.
Now we've got that out the way, the cast was as follows:
Elphaba: Willemijn Verkaik
Glinda: Lucy Scherer
Fiyero: Mathias Edenborn
Madame Akaber: Helena Blöcker*
Der Zauberer: Carlo Lauber
Nassarose: Janine Tippl
Moq: Stephan Luethy
Dr. Dillamonth: Michael Günther
Frex: Stefan Poslovski
Melena: Belinda Jean Edwards*
Midwife: Katrin Löbbert*
Chistery: Cosimo de Bartolomeo
Ensemble:
Emily Beaton-Young, Vanessa Campbell, Juliana de Aquino, Maria Graciano*, Barbara Schmid, Lanie Sumalinog, Maria Walter
Andrea Casati, Ben Cox*, Rhys George*, Jonathan Johnson, Robert Knorr, Jimmy Laremore, Filippo Strocchi
Conducted by: Nicolas Fink
***
Overall, the show was awesome. As Stuttgart always is, 'cause that production is serious love. The show has had new people coming in since September and a huge minor roles/ensemble cast overhaul in February, and, as I mentioned, this was my first show with the new folks. Some new people I prefer to the old ones, some made me want to cry to have the old ones back, but the general impression is still very good.
Except...
Oy. With. The track changes. They have switched Kisha and Emma's (Melissa/Nicky of the OLC, Vanessa/Kerry of the final Chicago cast, Angela/Gina of the OLAC, whichever) tracks for Theano and Emily, so that the former now plays Melena. SayWHAT? I was actually warned of this, and it was still all weird and confusing to see Emily's outfit in the ensemble when it should be away, cheating on the governor on Munchkinland. On top of all that, I had Belinda on as Melena, which was all sorts of weird, starting with the fact that she was bumped to swing from being in the Pippa Higgs ensemble track, which that was all "wait, whaat?" (even if I was prepared for it), and ending with the fact that she should just never be a redhead. Ever. On top of that, she was one of the many non-native-speaker-brings-the-lolz-in-solo-lines people, so that was endearing as hell. And she was amazing in the rest of the track. She got pretty new wigs that I approved of for the Shiz scenes and was just generally awesome. Belinda is actually the only person I've had in all my 11 shows in Stuttgart, which makes her all speshul and I love her a lot. Mmyeah. On the flipside, Emily was just sorta... there. Definitely the biggest letdown of the new ensemble, most likely because Emma was one of my favorite old ensemblies with tons of spunk and all-around awesomeness, while Emily was just sort of... there. Ah, well, I'll get used to her in time. Fuuurthermore... I had Maria Graciano in the Roberta/Melanie track (which = Courtney Corey's LA track with the solo line in both NOMTW and TG).
SHE IS SO THE CUTEST THING EVER, GUYS. Was in London, is here. Except here there's the added bonus of hearing her speak German, which... same as Belinda, plus an attempt at a growl onthe "no one cries, they won't return" line. Possibly my fave moment in the show, that. Bah, she's so awesome. Even if they keep giving her new wigs (I've seen her in two different Shiz wigs at this point, and now they've replaced her NOMTW hat, which was the one Kady-Jo wears, with a hat-shaped wig?? I swear, they do this to me on purpose), which is confusing as hell. The only problem was that her track is always in the back and she's inconveniently short and thus keeps being obstructed from view by other ensemble members. Not cool. On to Vanessa, who is now in Belinda's old track... She was AWESOME, very sassy, very into it, loved her. Juliana (new Shenshen) was not as cool as Jessica Lantto, though Nadine is the only person who *is*, so that was to be expected. She was good overall, but I missed Jessica "was ist denn DAS?!?!" liek whoa. Katrin (who replaced Valerie, who replaced Maike, who is in Elinor Collett's swing track) is cute as a button and I really wanna see her as Glinda. It's always so weird seeing swings in the Midwife track, though, since they're always so much younger than the usual Midwifes and instead of a grandma-voiced Antilope singing "It's coming! The baby's coming!" you get a cute-young-girl-voiced Antilope. I was amused, anyway xD Maria Walter (=Pfannee) and Lanie (=fainting girl) were both their usual selves... Let's just say I prefer other people in those track and leave it at that. The surprise of the evening was that Barbara Schmid was actually on when I was there! She's the palm-shaped-Shiz-wig track (=Maria Graciano in London) and I've not seen her in Stuttgart since May *last year*, so it was all new and different having her around. She is so cute it's ridiculous. At one point in Shiz Mathias semi-flirted with her and she remained all dreamy-eyed for a good while after that, twas adorable. The one problem I have with her track is that her OSD costume is cut too low and has a sparkly green bra popping out. This is not the slutty track, people! 
Aaaanyhow, in male ensemble news... JIMMY WAS BACK!
He's my favoritestest male ensemblie in this production plus I've a total crush on him, so I was bummed when he wasn't around in February. Then he was off for quite a while in March and April, to the point where people were beginning to think that he'd left, but, no! He came back the week after I saw the show, and I rejoiced. And crushed. And rejoiced some more. Even if the massive four-way costume switch in OSD in which he goes from his usual Dominic Shaw ensemble track to Joseph Connor's costume in the ribbon-twirler track (while three other guys have other random costume/track switches... saywhat?!) is annoying as hell and should just not have happened because it makes my head hurt. (Whaaaat? I've seen Wicked one time too many, I think it's fairly obvious at this point xD) Rhys George (who is in Josh Lacey's swing track) was on for Tommie Luyben (who replaced Alan Byland (woe!) and is in Joseph Connor's track), which was exciting, especially since I hadn't seen the ensemble list beforehand and kinda squealed a bit when I recognized his hairdo on the Lover. I also hadn't seen him the last time I was in Stuttgart and missed him tons. Him and his goooorgeous OSD/TG outfit... I spent a good chunk of time in December with him right in front of me during Thank Goodness, and I just kept staring at that outfit, 'tis so gorgeous and detailed and Susan Hilferty is made of a whole lot of win. And, uh, yeah, Rhys is awesome as well. The other guy swing was Ben Cox who was on for Kit Gresty (who replaced Jens Simon Petersen and is in Simon Adkins' ensemble track). He cut his hair, which confused the hell out of me for a while before I finally figured him out. He was in the track that asks whether it's true that Elphaba was Glinda's friend and promptly gets beaten up by the chick holding the streamers. Except Maria G. didn't have the streamers, so she just whacked him with her hand. Epic win. On to... awwcute!guy of the evening in the form of Andrea Casati (=Jye Frasca's ensemble track). He's adorkable liek whoa and I totally prefer him to Paul. Kinda wanna see him as Moq eventually, though if I could choose my Moq to see in Stuttgart until it closes, it would be Robert Knorr, whom I saw last time and who was all sorts of epic awesomeness. He was in his ensemble track this time (ratty boy), which wasn't quite as epic, though it's not like we actually see much of him beneath all the rat outfits... The long-haired Shiz wig is soo wrong on him, though. Furthermore, there was Philippo (who is new!Arthur = skirt guy = Oliver Tompsett's original track), who was better than expected, though nothing particularly spectacular. Cosimo was back as Chistery, which was nice 'cause he fits the role better than Casey Lee Ross. Totally love all these guys in Stuttgart as Chistery who don't seem to really be able to speak German. Makes the track all the more... poignant? Or else cracky. Jonathan Johnson was good and looked like the doppelganger of Cococcia (who is the doppelganger of Rey)... How do they find all these guys?! And lastly, Stefan was his usual Frex... not bad, but I've seen Macey (and Don!), so not good enough for my standards. He's sooo much better in the roles he understudies, especially as the Wizard...And, uh, I hear there are also leads in the show?
Stephan as Moq was not my cup of tea *at all*. I preferred him to the likes of Stanton and Logan, though that isn't really saying much. I went with a friend who ultimately decided she prefers him to Stefan Stara, but... ich hab' mich an Stara gewöhnt, at least? I don't know, there was just something about Stephen I didn't like... he was too pushy and too loud, which I don't like in a Moq. I prefer them more geeky and shy/quiet. All in all, I was not a fan. Can I haz Knorz back plz?
Janine as Nessa was... boring. There wasn't much I particularly disliked about her (the only thing I could pinpoint was her delivery of "You're not going back there to save some monkeys, you're going to find Fiyero, but it's too late", which was just waaaay too bitchy), but there wasn't anything that really stood out, either. Overall, though, she was just sort of there and didn't really do much for me. I find that I prefer Nessas who are really good in some parts and weaker in others (Maike was too old/mature in act 1 and brilliant in act 2 as opposed to Nicole, who was spot-on in act 1 but too young in act 2; Candler had moments where she was brilliant, but also moments where she overacted) to those who are totally bland overall. Janine was mostly... forgettable.
It actually quite amuses me that I've seen Michael's understudies more than I've seen him as Dillamonth. It's a role that's neither here or there for me... can't really do much wrong with it. He's mostly just there, being all tortured. I do have to say that I really like Michael's "Nun... ich waaahhhhrte!" Overall, he's very good, but I don't pay much mind to him in his scenes anyway, since they're perfect for ensemble-spotting instead.
Carlo was Carlo. He never really wows me as much as some Wizards do, but he gives a solid performance. He has some nice moments in Wonderful and does make me watch *him* instead of Willemijn, so that's always a good thing
Helena Blöcker (who usually plays the midwife) was on as Akaber and she was AWESOME. She's a really young Akaber and sounds it, but totally makes it work. She's very sassy and matter-of-fact, goes all out with big hand gestures, which I thought really works for the character, and gets properly scary/evil at all the right moments. Just REALLY, REALLY good. And looked awesome in her outfits, too.
Mathias is totally growing on me. The one thing that breaks my heart is that he doesn't say 'oops' anymore when he throws Moq's booq away at the beginning of DTL (didn't at Jana's Derniere, either). Sad times. I do think he overacts at some points, but he's very earnest about it, and somehow manages to make it look like something you'd expect from a character such as Fiyero. Plus, his and Willemijn's exchanged WTF look and subsequent searching for the right thing to say during Glinda's name-change is made of total win.
That said, though, the whole second classroom-train station sequence makes me painfully aware I'll probably never see as good a combination in the three parts as Idina/Helen/Adam. Say what you will about Adam's (sometimes-lacking) acting skillz or the fact that he and Idina had more of a friendly-chemistry than lover-chemistry, but those three owned that bit of the show. The bit I always sort of expect Fiyero and Elphaba to do but haven't really seen since Adam/Idina is in the second classroom. They do the "haha, you're Galindafied" bit, then Dillamond comes in and everyone sits down. All other Elphabas I've seen go back to full-on nerd mode and only pay attention to Dillamond after he showed up, while the Fiyeros turn to some random classmates and talk to them, not really giving a damn about what's happening in class (or, in Mathias' case on Friday, semi-flirt with random girls in the class, which, relatively understandable as it is at this point in the show, I still didn't quite approve of). Meanwhile, towards the end of Idina's run, she and Adam would go sit down when Dillamond entered the classroom, but continue staring at each other, smiling sheepishly and/or chatting quietly and being all cute and young-love-y and only really breaking out of it once Dillamond announces he's leaving. I always thought that this particular minute of their unscripted semi-flirting was one of the most brilliant bits of ad-libbing I've seen in Wicked and I miss it tons.
Aaanyhow, that aside, Mathias is awesome. I still prefer Mark and would have him back in a heartbeat, but Mathias definitely works.
Lucy, however, does not. (Notice my smooth segue, mmyeah.) I keep hoping I'll go back to the show and like her better, but she does not improve on closer acquaintance. She's cute. And bubbly. And has that special 'it' that makes you look at her when she's on stage. And, uh, she IS better than at least half the Glindas I've seen (not that, with Kendra, Annaleigh and Dianne, this is a particularly difficult feat to accomplish). But in that particular production, I find her to be the weakest link of the major leading cast, and the fact that all of her understudies (especially Jana, who - with Helen - is the love of my life, Glinda-wise) are much better than her doesn't really help either.
I've been trying to figure out what I don't like about Lucy's portrayal of Glinda. 'Cause it's not like she's THAT bad overall. She sings well, doesn't spaz out as much as some, and it's obvious she and Willemijn like each other and it's REALLY nice to see a proper hug in the end of For Good. And I think I've finally managed to list the things that make me dislike her in the role...
1) her voice: Lucy's speaking voice is high-pitched enough as it is, but she changes it somehow for Glinda. She doesn't go squeaky just so she could emulate Kristin, but she changes her timbre somehow... The closest description I can come up with is that she sounds like she's speaking to a child all of the time, and it just doesn't work for me. She also has the tendency to mess up her lines. Not get them *wrong*, just... say something vaguely similar to what is scripted. The sehrgutlucy video on Youtube where she says Willemijn speaks German better than she does... it's true. It might be the whole foreigner-being-uncomfortable-adlibbing thing (like Lanie!Nessa, whose German was textbook perfect to the point of being completely unnatural) that keeps Willemijn from changing the script she learned, but, damn, the script *is* there for a reason. Lucy keeps stammering and changing little bits and while it's perfectly fine to change something to react appropriately to a mishap or something like that, I do think you should otherwise stick to what you should be saying. I do have to say, Lucy was at her worst with this back in February and has gotten better since, but it's still really annoying.
2) her one facial expression: happy, sad or angry, Lucy's Glinda always looks the same. Some might claim she's being subtle, but, personally, I can't agree with that. Subtlety is Richard Armitage in North & South who can show a dozen emotions over a span of five seconds by merely lifting his eyebrows. With Lucy, it's always the same - the slight pout, and the round cheeks, she just doesn't change. And the fact that she's acting opposite Willemijn, who's tremendously expressive, and Mathias, who tends to overact with his gestures as well as his words, makes Lucy's passiveness all the more apparent. Doesn't help that I particularly like my actors expressive (Julia, Jana), either...
3) her posture: I've always thought that all the Amnerises-turned-Elphabas (Lisa in particular) would make really fine Glindas simply because of the way they carry themselves. The characteristic I'd ideally like to see in both my Elphaba *and* my Glinda is the is the sort of regal, beauty-queen-like way of floating across the stage. With Elphaba, I don't necessarily expect it to come until act 2 (Julia, for instance, *purposefully* doesn't do this in act 1, opting to play the younger Elphaba more quirky, so that the Defying Gravity transformation makes more impact), but I definitely want to see this in my Glinda from the second she's rolled into Shiz on all the suitcases. And most of the Glindas I've seen fail here. Helen and Annalene played the "wealthy, high-class girl" parts brilliantly, Boyle played the Upper East Side bitchy chick brilliantly, Jana was a taaad more on the quirky side of Glinda but she carried herself wonderfully as well. Lucy... I hesitate to say she plays Glinda like the class clown because that's not it, but she definitely tries to go for laughs with her posture, walking a bit funny, hands always at a slightly awkward angle, overall just very slouchy/funny-looking. To me, however, her entire posture seems to say "I'm not 100% comfortable standing up here in this ridiculous pink outfit, putting makeup on my new green friend", and I find it to be a huge problem because that isn't how I see Glinda. In my opinion, there are exactly two moments during Shiz where Glinda is supposed to look uncomfortable: "dancing through liiiife, down at the Ozdust, if only because dust is what we've come to" when Fiyero spins her around and she suddenly loses her footing and realizes she's not the centre of attention anymore, and later in the song she's standing up to dance with Elphaba (even then, she should only feel awkward up to the point where she's faced with the two friends and consciously chooses to continue dancing). At every other point, I need my Glinda to look and feel completely confident and in control of everything and everyone else. It's partly the casting of many Glindas, I guess. Wacky cutie blondes are greater in number on Broadway than beauty queens (one of which has been cast in Wicked already, while the other is way too tall to fit into the bubble) and I while I get that wacky cutie blondes are the next best thing to this "regal" Glinda I'm looking for, they don't play Glinda the way I'd want to see her played. Which is possibly why I like so few Glindas. And definitely a huge reason why I dislike Lucy's performance in particular.
Uhhh. Yeah. I've been meaning to type this all for a while now. So sorry 'bout that.
This brings us to Willemijn.
Who... ISSOEFFINGAWESOMEITSNOTEVENFUNNYAAAAAH.
Uh, yeah.
Willemijn just might, by the end of the Stuttgart run, push her way past Idina and become my most seen Elphaba. And, frankly, she's one of the few people I'm willing to let that happen with. She. Is. Perfect. Another detour here, but I don't think I've ever really touched on the subject of this, so... My different-characterizations tolerance for Elphabas is bigger than for Glindas, I guess. Or else I've been fortunate enough to see more different interpretations of Elphaba that worked really well for me. One of the reasons I particularly miss Sabrina in Stuttgart, though, is the fact that I thought both her and Willemijn were absolutely fantastic, but in SUCH different ways. On one hand, there was Sabrina, who plays Elphaba even younger than Idina or CJ... Her Elphaba is SO damn happy and wide-eyed and idealistic in act one, thinks everything will be just fine, then - boom! - DG/act2 forces her to grow up way too fast. Yet, at the same time, you can still see that young idealistic girl from act 1 throughout the rest of the show, and that just about kills you. And it's pretty much perfect.
Then there's Willemijn, who comes into the show already as old as Methuselah, wise way beyond her years, and *this* makes her a misfit just as much as her green-ness does. On top of that, her Elphaba seems as if she doesn't really know how to deal with being different during Shiz, and you spend the show watching the shell of act 2 Elphaba fill out before you until you reach the cornfield/NGD/FG scenes when it all falls into place, for Elphaba, but also for you. With Sabrina, you get the feeling she *could* be a normal girl if people could see beyond the green and it breaks your heart that they never really do. With Willemijn, you can see that she'd always be the anti-social bookworm most people would mock but some boy might be enchanted by, and the fact that she never gets to be properly happy (there's always some impediment, even in the end there's the fact that she can never be reunited with Glinda) breaks your heart just as much. And seeing her Elphaba grow from this slightly nerdy, slightly angry Shiz student who gets totally geeky at the thought of meeting the Wizard and hops her way up and down TWAI to this brilliant, awe-inspiring, tortured woman in NDG (her dropping to her knees towards the end of the song is definitely one of the top 5 moments in the show) is simply *glorious*.
*insert long gushing sound here*
Overall arc aside, though, there are just soooo many little things she does:
- I've already mentioned the jumping up and down in TWAI, damn, SOCUTE.
- Her Glinda mockage in WITF is perfection and it's the one moment that makes me wish Lucy were a bit more spazzy 'cause it would make Willemijn's moment that much more awesome. Backstory - tons of Glindas do the really spazzy arm waving thing when Morribles ask if anyone has questions regarding room assignments and Elphabas mock in WITF. Willemijn takes this a step further and does this brilliant thing where she first stares blankly ahead kinda sways her shoulders relatively normally, then breaks out into hyperspazzy waving. What I ADORE about her, though, is that she only does it to the extent to which the Glinda did it. Jana did TONS of the vawing, Willemijn acted accordingly, and it was effing brilliant. Lucy just kinda waves a bit and then stops, Willemijn acts accordingly yet again, but there's simply not enough for her to feed off of. *woe*
- Her being pissy with poor Avaric. Poor guy, she really is a force to be reckoned with in that scene
- The WTFISTHISTHING look when Glinda gives her the hat in DTL.
- The fact that she grins like crazy at the end of DTL, toooo adorable.
- Pretty much every facial expression she puts on during Popular.
- Her delivery of "Das ist wiiiiirklich nicht nötig" ("You really don't have to do that."), which is totally half doubtful and half downright afraid, SO awesome.
- Her bits of the love triangle scenes are always right on and her INTG kills me. KILLS. ME. Every single time. I'm usually not a fan of the dark hair/blue eyes combo, but there's just something about the way her eyes glaze over and she's so damn sad but still half-smiles at all the right places (random shoutout to Julia for that, too xD) that's just... aaaah. Reminds me why that song can be my favorite number in the show when the Elphaba does it justice.
- And then she's all ridiculously happy for the invitation-to-Emerald-City/OSD, snarky at Fiyero at the train station scene, angry at the Wizard when he turns out to be a fake that it makes even Sentimental Man a joy to watch.
- Her "ist das der Preis für Liebe/kostet sie zuviel" ("if that's love it comes at much too high a cost") is awesome, which is good since it's my fave line and all (even if Idina's delivery of that still >>> life), and the end of DG makes me realize that 1) Dutch people are ridiculously too talented as a rule (*cough*PiaSusanWietske*cough*) and 2) alternates in Wicked are a Good Thing Indeed. She's been doing the show for a year and a half, without any major time off asides from usual vacations, and she still sounds just as brilliant as she did in 2007. Find me another Elphaba for whom you can say that.
- Then there's act 2 with the catfight, which is probably the most awesome bit of the German production (less so with Lucy, though, and CAN I HAZ JANA BACK? Bah, I should probably just do a review of Jana's last instead of having every Glinda-themed sentence mention her...) I don't know if this is direction or something Willemijn came up with on her own, but basically, when Elphaba launches into the Fiyero-doesn't-love-you rant, all the English-speaking productions I've seen have Elphaba start moving towards Glinda right away, then do half the rant right into Glinda's face. Meanwhile, all the Stuttgart Elphabas spend the better part of the rant on the opposite side of the stage, then start closing in, *ever-so-slowly*, on Glinda, until only the "er liebt MICH" ("he loves ME") line is in Glindas face. You can cut the tension with a knife throughout the whole speech and it's the most brilliant thing ever. EVER.
- Also, the last couple of times I've seen Willemijn, she'd turn to the audience to deliver the "Ich. Auch." ("So do I.") line. She didn't do it on Friday, which I approved of 'cause I wasn't really sure about the fourth wall breakage that the former way of delivery caused.
- Aaand yeah. Her NGD is perfection on a stick. I absolutely love the way Willemijn handles the cape in the bit that's sung in the back. Rare Elphabas do it well, most just wave it around with no method in the madness, and it thus gets completely tangled for "alright, enough, so be it" when they have to put their hands down in resignation, which totally ruins the effect. Willemijn does it just right and it's freaking awesome. This particular show, she flubbed a line in the (I think?) second verse of the song... she started singing the wrong part of a line or something, stopped altogether, then went on as if nothing happened. Cue communal sharp intake of breath by all the ardent fans in the audience (and there were quite a few). Supposedly this was the first time anyone's seen Willemijn miss a line. Twas quite endearing, really. And then she dropped to her knees and sang some über-high notes and all was right with the world yet again xD
- Cut to 15-ish minutes later and she sang some awesome low notes for the finale and I could go home (or, uh, to Bremen?) happy.
Overall, it was an awesome show. I was very pleasantly surprised by the new ensemblies and Helena!Akaber, and Willemijn was awesome as always. It wasn't perfect - it's been a while since I saw a performance of Wicked that could truly be described as such - but it was darn good nonetheless.
***
We didn't stay at the SD long since we had to catch a night train to Bremen (yay, Marie Antoinette with its ex-Wicked-cast-member overload!). Got Knorr to sign the Boq page in my Grimmerie, giggled at Willemijn being a social butterfly and finally managed to catch Maria G. and chat briefly with her. Good thing, too, that I finally worked up the courage to stop her since she's leaving next month. She says hi to all of her crazy campers and asks for good vibes to be sent towards her so she lucks out on upcoming auditions (including Blonde in London... can this PLEASE happen?). Overall, twas short and sweet, and I can't wait to repeat the experience in July
LOL love that you know the ensemble so well...was a very interesting read but had to laugh cause I thought I paid too much attention to our Melbourne cast....clearly not. 
It's a great review Petra..."THANKS" so much for all you wrote cause for those of us who have not seen the production...the next best thing to being there is reading about it! 
to see late January and in reading your review was agreeing wholeheartedly with your comments about how you see Glinda as "regal"....SAME!!! I want to experience that kind of Glinda and while I know many enjoy the over the top mannerisms and laughs of various actresses in the role...not how I see Glinda at all but seems to be a set formula at the moment. 
But that's the interesting thing about reviews - to discuss different opinions and impressions. For me, for example, Jana's Glinda wasn't my cup of tea at all... in my eyes Lucy had so much better ideas to make her Glinda special and lived the role much more instead of just being the funny witch.