There are supposed to be people deep in the West, in Cologne or Düsseldorf, who deny the carnival, or rather the carnival here in Munich, a special touch. If only you had come to the Viktualienmarkt this Saturday for the start of the season! Just the clothes of the city’s official prince couple: Katharina I. and Frederik I. are not wearing any pseudo-monarchical robes or carnival costumes when they walk up to the stage at Viktualienmarkt at 11:11 a.m. They come in lederhosen and dirndls.
And the first song to warm you up to, you can’t deny its Bavarian originality. The three-man band plays “There is a Hofbräuhaus in Munich” on stage, with the desired back-and-forth effect on the audience.
Well, the lyrics of the song don’t fit perfectly with “the glass of Prosecco for everyone”, which the court marshal of the Narrhalla carnival society offers on stage at the same time to the personalities from carnival and politics to toast. But that doesn’t seem to bother the visitors, who are rather sparingly costumed, because in addition to the exuberance, the people of Munich also have a very unique state of mind during carnival.
It’s not for nothing that the band’s second song is: “A cheers to cosiness”. If that’s not a special carnival note. Incidentally, Munich did not have to seal off the city center at the same time as Cologne did in order to get the crowds under control.
Katharina I. and Frederik I., both 23 years old, carry out their first official duties, including the interview by the master of ceremonies, in a charmingly reserved manner, and their “loveliness” also has a carnival family history that not only carnivalists do in sun, clouds and cold must have warmed your heart.
Your grandparents Karin and Carl-Peter ruled Munich as a prince couple 55 years ago, exactly on the 75th anniversary of the Narrhalla. And in honor of her grandmother, Katharina reveals, she will be wearing her dress from back then at the first ball of the season, the Hofball in the Bayerischer Hof, on Saturday evening. “I was born with carnival,” she says.
The entry of the market women is definitely part of the start of the carnival in Munich…
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
…as well as the appearance of Narrhalla…
(Photo: Florian Peljak/Florian Peljak)
…and top acrobatic performances.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
Not everyone in the audience is dressed up, but some are quite imaginative.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
In real life, Katharina Ibscher works in the film and television industry, organizing film sets and productions in the background so that everything runs smoothly during filming. Your prince or “Tollität”, as Frederik Jehle will now be called until Ash Wednesday, is an “officer and gentleman”. At least that’s how the court marshal introduces him, alluding to the film with Richard Gere.
In fact, Frederik Jehle studies politics and sociology at the Bundeswehr University and has the rank of lieutenant there. The two are also a couple in their private lives, and perhaps they will write a story like Katharina’s grandparents. Although they first met and fell in love as a royal couple, they married just a year later.
With so much romance, it should not be forgotten that not only a couple of princes will be presented in the center of Munich on November 11th. A walk over to Marienplatz is the slightly smaller stage of the Würmesia Carnival Society, where Prince Miro and Princess Daniela make their first appearance. In front of the town hall as well as on the Viktualienmarkt, carnival fans cavort between huts, which now announce the typical Munich season of Christmas markets.
But once the candles have been extinguished and the mulled wine has been drunk, then the next season in the city, the foolish one, really begins on January 5th with the official handover of the regency to the carnival prince couple.