Salzburger Marionettentheater | Isabelle Faust & Friends

In the organizer's words:

The Soldier' s Tale by Igor Stravinsky: neither opera nor theater, but a piece "to read, to play and to dance". First performed in Lausanne in 1918, at the end of the First World War, Histoire du soldat was written in exile on Lake Geneva, where Stravinsky met the writer Charles Ferdinand Ramuz and the painter René Auberjonois. "I was," said Stravinsky, "in the midst of war and in a foreign country, facing nothingness." Inspired by a Russian folk tale, the three artists tell of a deserted soldier, the devil and the princess - characters without individual psychology, designed in the tradition of puppet and fairground theaters.

On the occasion of the Salzburg Festival 2025, Matthias Bundschuh staged a celebrated new production, which is now also coming to Munich's Prinzregententheater as part of a European tour of musica viva. Georg Baselitz created the marionettes and the set: sculpturally reduced bodies made of tubes, in which only skeleton and movement count and the essentials are visible. Dominique Horwitz narrates the story of the soldier who sells his soul to the devil. Isabelle Faust has put together an all-star ensemble of musicians who become congenial partners to the puppeteers of the Salzburg Marionette Theater. Founded in 1913 by Anton Aicher and a UNESCO cultural heritage site since 2016, the Salzburg Marionette Theater once again demonstrates with this production how precision craftsmanship, artistic vision and musical brilliance merge to create a unique and captivating experience.

Program:
Igor Stravinsky [1882-1971]
The Soldier's Tale [1918]
Libretto by Charles F. Ramuz, German version by Hans Reinhart
Scenic performance

Performers:
Georg Baselitz puppets, set
Matthias Bundschuh Director
Dominique Horwitz Speaker

Instrumentalists:
Isabelle Faust violin
Pascal Moraguès clarinet
Giorgio Mandolesi bassoon
Reinhold Friedrich Cornet
Ian Bousfield trombone
Wies de Boevé double bass
Raymond Curfs percussion

Marionette players:
Edouard Funck, Ursula Winzer (The Soldier)
Philippe Brunner, Eva Wiener (The Devil)
Vladimir Fediakov, Maximilian Kiener-Laubenbacher (The Princess)
Veronika Grimme (The King / The Veteran)
Marion Mayer (The Crier / The Trumpeter)
Philipp Schmidt (The Drummer)
Ensemble of the Salzburg Marionette Theater (Villagers)

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