Right now it’s a bit wonderfully crazy in this city. The Isarphilharmonie was opened a week ago, now, this Friday, the new Volkstheater, and if you try to capture the atmosphere at this opening, you are almost tempted to read the week old text again and just exchange a few sentences , because here too: beaming faces, grinning faces, amazed faces.
The first to meet is the former cultural advisor Hans-Georg Küppers, who is largely responsible for the fact that you can now stand in the sensationally beautiful inner courtyard of the new building in the Schlachthofviertel: “It’s wonderful to see the things that we started years ago now in to see this magnificent shape completed. “
What is new here, compared to the opening of the Isarphilharmonie: There is a demo. Eleven people are standing in front of the Volkstheater, showing videos from slaughterhouses and a banner that reads: “Shed light on speciesism instead of fading out.” What is interesting about it is that nobody, whom one asks among the certainly clever folk theater-goers, can explain what “speciesism” is supposed to be. This is a demo with a real bang – nobody knows what it’s about.
Well, you can somehow already know, the idea is obviously that you shouldn’t do any art when animals are slaughtered in the immediate vicinity. Another banner quotes Heinrich Böll: “Where culture dies, barbarism begins”, which is just as enigmatic, because the new Volkstheater was built so that art would not die.
Many people don’t notice that anyway, the demo, Katrin Habenschaden comes along, second mayor and chairwoman of the supervisory board of the Volkstheater, her radiance fills the entire inner courtyard, she praises the building, the color scheme, finds everything, rightly, dynamic and lively, is happy on the performance. After this, when the premiere party slowly begins to develop, she says: “It’s not a party yet. A party is when something is taken off that should actually remain on the body.” It can be assumed that the further course of the evening will certainly reconcile her with her ideas.
Landlord Christian Stückl and Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter smirk at the edge of the stage
As fabulous as the building is, smells new and shines, there are constants from the old Volkstheater, the Riederinger musicians in the audience wear the same costume as always, and almost the entire “Brandner Kaspar” troupe seems to be watching. And in the men’s room you overhear a conversation: “Is that your passion play hairstyle?” Yes she is.
So into the big house. Without a mask, after strict control of the possible Gs. You stare into the open stage. It looks huge. There is a lectern in the middle, it looks very small here. Host Christian Stückl and Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter smirk at the edge of the stage, who should speak first, Stückl sends Reiter in front. He is completely in the opening mode, a new house every week, but thinks that it will now be torn down – one could recommend him to open the “Spielart” festival in a week.
Not a new house, but new art. Reiter repeats, can repeat what he said at the opening of the Isarphilharmonie: You are on schedule, on budget, a new theater for 131 million euros. And he repeats what he said a week ago (or was it at the opening of the new Schwere Reiter?): “Culture is the glue of society.”
Reiter also makes a bit of fun about what was to be read in a “big Munich newspaper” 21 years ago with regard to future prognoses about the then designated Volkstheaterintendanten Stückl. It didn’t say that the city would one day build a new house for him. Reiter emphasizes that the new building is largely due to Stückl’s perseverance; through him he also learned what a stage tower is and that such a tower has to be high. And anyway: “We will do everything we can to keep Christian here.” But he doesn’t want to leave anyway.
When Christian himself comes to the middle of the stage, the applause spills so high that Stückl is embarrassed and a bit lost, but leans deliberately casually at the lectern. He briefly explains why the new building was essential – the necessary renovation of the old house would have cost 50 million euros and the property would still have belonged to the Football Association afterwards. Then Stückl quickly distracts from his own person, praises everyone who made the new building possible and brings the architect Arno Lederer onto the stage. He talks about the 1000 pages of the catalog of requirements, praises the company’s technical director Carsten Lück and others and tells in funny Swabian that he had discovered an empty space in the collection of tasks to be fulfilled: beauty. “That this was not required, we thought, so let’s give something.” Just the beauty. He succeeded in doing this with the construction.
Stückl then just wants to get off the stage, but where is the Korbinian? Korbinian is the keeper of the curtain that evening, and because Stückl Gedöns is always embarrassed about himself, he now wants to have the curtain closed quickly so that it can disappear and the curtain can be opened again in a few minutes for the premiere . Korbinian, however, gives Stückls so much time that he can put the hope of a nice party with the audience afterwards.
Afterwards. Albert Ostermaier, poet and playwright: “I think that the new folk theater is the most beautiful embodiment of how politics, poetry and precision can come together and create a place of possibilities and sensuality.” Stückl’s urban colleagues: “Great. The stage is not easy to play on, but what it can do technically!” (Barbara Mundel, artistic director of the Münchner Kammerspiele) “The room is fantastic. I’m totally jealous of the house.” (Andrea Gronemeyer, director of the Schauburg) “The statement from the city of Munich for art comes late. But it comes out tremendously.” (Jochen Schölch, director of the Metropol-Theater)
Alexander Duda, venerable (not only) folk theater mime and still part of “Brandner”, would like to get on again immediately, Pascal Fligg, who has been with the ensemble for the longest time since 2009 and in the opening premiere of “Edward II.” Entrusted with the role of Archbishop of Canterbury, the house thinks it’s madness: “You can feel the audience, the togetherness, the togetherness.” There is also church support; by Rainer Hepler, art pastor of the Archdiocese of Munich: “It’s almost like Easter and Christmas together. And the play just now was about messed up church sexual morality, about breaking with conventions – I think that’s good.” Guest manager Max Wagner, the custodian of the Isarphilharmonie and the entire HP8, is already thinking about possible forms of cooperation. “Originally a bus line was supposed to connect us, but then the MVV decided differently.”
During all this and already in the last minutes of the opening premiere, the Styrian band “Granada” plays their fabulous rumbling performance of poetic root music on stage 2. At first you can’t find the band because you can’t hear it outside. But as soon as you step on stage 2, the music knocks you away with a great thump. What a concert space! And even if you can’t hear the band outside, the party is noticeable, there is dancing in the foyer, in the Schmock restaurant and in the courtyard there is humming and humming. And, as is so often the case with the old Volkstheater: The police are there. On the first evening. Hey, the Volkstheater has arrived in the district. Unmistakable, unmistakable.