The small puppet theater has big plans in the coming days: On Wednesday, April 10th, performers from the upcoming double opera evening “Lucrezia/The Moon” will be guests at the Cuvilliés Theater on Blumenstrasse, to focus on the second composer of the evening, Carl Orff.
“On the occasion of the upcoming premiere, the State Opera approached me because our house can look back on a decades-long tradition of performing Orff plays,” says Siegfried Böhmke, director of the puppet stage. This is how the idea of a comparison arose in which the conductor Ustina Dubitsky, the dramaturg and a singer from the big house compare the creation process of their production with the performance practice in “Munich’s smallest opera house”. His puppet theater ensemble will present excerpts from Orff’s “The Kluge”, with the singing coming from the tape.
The name “Munich’s smallest opera house” dates back to the 1940s, when the puppet theater actually had a small live orchestra. “Depending on the needs, for example for Mozart’s ‘Abduction from the Seraglio’, singers from the Gärtnerplatztheater or the State Opera were added; for them this was a small additional income,” says Böhmke. A tradition that ended at the end of the 1950s, “playing records opened up completely new possibilities,” says Böhmke with a hint of regret.
Reason to be happy: The Munich Marionette Theater – here servant Alois Hingerl in “A Munich in Heaven” – is also part of the “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Bavaria”, which author Andreas M. Bräu presents in the puppet stage.
(Photo: Munich Marionette Theater)
The book presentation on the morning of April 14th is also about Bavaria’s traditions: an impressive 69 entries are included in the state list of intangible cultural heritage for Bavaria; In his book “Immaterial Cultural Heritage of Bavaria” (Allitera Verlag), Andreas M. Bräu traced them in a self-experiment by climbing into the carp pond, dancing twice and celebrating eagerly – at the Landshut wedding as well as at the Lindenkirchweih in Limmersdorf and the fountain festival in Wunsiedel.
Two years ago, the Munich Marionette Theater was included in the illustrious compilation. One more reason for the “Munich man in heaven”, which will be performed after the book launch, to rejoice and belt out his hosanna.