Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern I Rapunzel

The Little Match Girl

‘It was terribly cold; it was snowing, and evening was already drawing in.’

New Year’s Eve. Cold, wind, a girl without shoes. Her slippers are gone, the matches unsold. She lights them, and with every flame a door opens. In the glow of the matches, it is not just warmth that awaits. Encounters await: with herself, with her mother, with her father. What appears behind the doors is neither a vision nor a consolation, but a conversation that was long overdue.

The production takes Andersen’s fairy tale as its starting point for a story about what is passed down between generations: not as a heavy burden, but as a game with an open ending. The roast, the tree and the festive gathering are merely a backdrop here for something greater: the desire to be seen.

Rapunzel

‘Rapunzel, let down your hair…’, words from a fairy tale that are at least as well-known as its authors, who committed them to writing for posterity. Everyone knows this fairy tale: a story of the fulfilment of one’s deepest desires and of first, great and everlasting love. Yet when we allow this fairy tale to become reality, it begins to take hold. Suddenly, it is the fairy tale that observes the audience and challenges them. Everything is turned upside down and abysses open up that can only find expression in an opulent Baroque opera.

• For adults only – admission from 14 years of age