“When winter storm Xynthia swept across Europe in 2010, it left behind insured losses of around two billion euros. The year before, Klaus raged in Europe. The balance sheet: also around two billion euros in insured losses. ‘Lothar’ exceeded both events in 1999. For him, the Insurers pay around six billion euros.” This is what our ancestors had to live with before meteorologists and actuaries explained the world to them. For them it was the “wild hunt” that swept over the roofs with an eerie sound between Christmas and Candlemas and shook their own existence. Light and sound technicians have now dug deep into their box of sounds and tricks to recreate this effect: During the performance of the mystical “Rauhnacht”, the imaginary company swept through the old warehouse with a wild roar, even if you closed your eyes for a few seconds , compassion awoke for those who were once unwittingly and unpreparedly exposed.
Mystical Scenes…
(Photo: Christian Endt)
With open eyes, on the other hand, the audience could observe the performances at the weekend, which picture the people made of the events in the rough nights. Even the imaginative masks of the stage people and the musicians are worth every look. The close connection between the folk rockers from Schariwari and the Kirchseeoner Perchten leads to a spectacle of horns and grimaces that do every nightmare honor. Even the narrator, a convincing Ferdinand Dörfler in the role of the coarse-hearted Holzmandl, appears in a detailed form, like a miniature from a book of legends. The same applies to his cute counterpart, the troll who immigrated from the Waterkant, cheeky and cheeky, but also deeply thoughtful in the monologue about the path to exile, charmed by Mesi Sedlmeir. The contrast between the two could not be greater and creates an inviting playing field for exciting and cheerful moments. For example, when the troll high-spiritedly carves a pentacle into an old tree with its knife – and its spirit punishes the outrage with a leap in language: the natural being must immediately curse in Bavarian instead of Platt.
…and bewitching dances.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
The game of the Rauhnacht lives from the fact that such jokes, as well as current time references, are so naturally woven into the events that the story is presented so catchily, as if there were no difference between the world of our great-great-grandparents and today. The chapter on “Frau Percht”, for example, who takes care of children who died without being baptized, who were condemned by a ruthless clergy to burial outside the cemetery wall and who were denied the kingdom of heaven: Whoever thinks of the innocent victims of war and flight of our days, thinks of it step into the “Mama!” deeply intoned by Günther Lohmeier. the band inevitably tears in their eyes.
The Mystical Rauhnacht takes you into a world of ghosts and goblins.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
How one cannot take one’s hat off to the Schariwaris anyway because of their art of sound and playing. In the course of their career, the folk rock ensemble has always impressed with its courageous and clever handling of its own compositions; but the “Rauhnacht” gave the band an identity that extends beyond the day and the individual concert. They don’t just play this music, they vibrate with body and soul. Lohmeier, who also plays guitar, Rudi Baumann on guitar and mandolin, Steve Moises on drums and bodhran, Sepp Bartl on keyboard and accordion, Franz Meier-Dini on bass and Rainer Eglseder on glockenspiel not only play together and to each other with somnambulistic certainty – they also free the melodies from any technical-terrestrial heaviness and give them that floating, mystical power that a “mystical” deserves.
And every now and then the musicians, like Günther Lohmeier here, move the audience to tears with their music.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
The visual and dramaturgical highlight of the evening are the two exciting and beguiling dances by Camila Mos, once as “Luz”, once as “Hex”. The cheekiness with which she lets her long red hair twirl through the air, the provocative eroticism of her movements and the wild stamping of her steps tell in clear language how confusingly self-confident women must have appeared to those contemporaries: who not only as a people lived the “Rauhnacht” to cloak their fears and worries, but who also, as rulers, saw uncanny figures such as the Spirifankerl as a tried and tested means of diverting popular anger. The dramatic and depressing scene of the Haberfeld raids against the evil farmer can be understood as an analogue expression of what we digital people call “shitstorm” today.
Thunderous applause was the reward for the Shariwaris in the packed old warehouse.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
Haunting images, reverberating thoughts and melodies: What more could you want from a perfectly staged play? “Once you’ve died, you’re far from dead,” says the troll to Holzmandl with a hint of wisdom. This can also be said of the legends about the rough nights, especially when they are breathed as much life into them as in the mystical of the Shariwaris. Stormy applause, which was hardly inferior to the wild hunt, interspersed with loud shouts of bravo and loud whoops, was the reward of the audience in the fully occupied old warehouse for the rousing performance.
After the start in Ebersberg, the “Bayerische Rauhnacht” goes on tour, including the Mystical in Erding, Rosenheim, Germering and Taufkirchen. All dates and information can be found on the Schariwari band’s website.