Salzburger Marionettentheater

A backstage visit with the "Salzburger Marionettentheater" directed by Georg Wübbolt, with narration in English.

Above all, the puppets from Salzburg are associated with worldwide with Mozart, which is no coincidence as the history of the "Salzburger Marionettentheater" started with Mozart. Founded by Anton Aicher at the beginning of the 20th century, today the theatre is run in the third generation by his granddaughter Prof. Gretl Aicher. When her grandfather brought his puppet theatre to the public eye for the first time, he chose instinctively a pastoral play by young Mozart who was only 12 years old when he composed "Bastien and Bastienne". His genius inspired the puppets and their players, the friends, singers and musicians who put themselves at the disposal of the small theatre. The audience was enthusiastic about this unusual presentation of Mozart though at that time nobody could know which course the Salzburg puppets would take in the time to come.

Later Prof. Gretl Aichers parents tried hard to improve he technique, the expression and the possibilities of the puppets. Hermann Aicher spared neither risk nor experiments although he had to fend for himself and could not expect any support from official sources which nowadays, in the age of subsidized theatre, is and almost unimaginable fact. Not least because of economical reasons, the Aichers had to switch over to a tour theatre which required an attractive, internationally comprehensible repertoire. With the help of new recording techniques the ensemble started to carry out a long-cherished wish: a performance of Mozart's "Magic Flute". In 1952 the puppet theatre started to work out its first "Magic Flute" in collaboration with the set-designer Günther Schneider-Siemssen and the Mozart expert, writer and director Géza Rech.

Base on a recording of a performance at the Salzburg Festival the experiment was more than a success. Mozart's music, the magic of the reduced stage, the phenomenon of the anonymous ideal figures that left much room for the viewer's fantasy acted in combination and had an effect in New York as well as in Dallas, in Paris as well as in Tokyo or South Africa. Until today, "The Magic Flute" is the heart of the Mozart repertoire.