When the Heimatsound Festival takes place again in Oberammergau in July 2023, it will be four years since the last festival of this kind. In 2019 we last met in the Passionstheater to listen to bands from the Alps, that was a small eternity ago. The reasons for this are well known, Corona, then the Passion Play. In any case, Till Hofmann and Christian Stückl seem happy that there will be two days of music again this year. In the Volkstheater they present the line-up, and of course, Stückl also presents the summer theater program.
The Heimatsound Festival will take place on July 28th and 29th. Confirmed so far are the artists Voodoo Jürgens, the Lower Bavarian rappers from dense & poignant, Django 3000Ringlstetter & Band, Slatec and the duo Steiner & Madlaina from Switzerland. Behind it are the musicians Nora Steiner and Madlaina Pollina, who, as the name suggests, is the daughter of Pippo Pollina and sister of the musician Faber. The organizers had to increase the ticket prices because it was extremely difficult to get technicians and security personnel, explains Hofmann. A well-known problem in the event industry, the situation has worsened since Corona. Two days now cost 89 euros, a day ticket 63 euros, advance sales have already begun.
Of course there will also be theater in the Passionstheater again. “It is a duty of the community to take care of the culture,” says Christian Stückl, director and director of the Passion Play. This time, the contract with the municipality was only issued for one year and not for longer, which Stückl criticizes, but the Oberammergau Mayor Andreas Rödl (CSU) who was present justified with a certain post-corona uncertainty.
In any case, this time Stückl chose Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”. A text with “very, very many words” that he somehow wants to make playable. The challenge for theater in Oberammergau is always this: to find a text in which as many people as possible can take part, because the summer theater also has the purpose of getting people used to acting so that, when the passion is over, enough are in theatrical form.
As in the Passion story, there are only a manageable number of female roles in “Julius Caesar”, but it is “again a piece of sandal”, says Stückl, “that works well for us.” He is interested in the question of democracy and its endangerment by autocrats, which is also dealt with in Shakespeare’s play. The premiere is on June 30th, followed by seven more performances until August. And of course “Brandner Kaspar” from the Munich Volkstheater will also be making a guest appearance in Oberammergau again on July 7th and 9th, which has long been a tradition.