Costume Designer

Imagine the world were a village. Imagine peace reigned there. Now imagine night falling over the houses and the streetlights shining. Picture it clearly. Behind the windows, people were eating their bread and drinking their tea. And the children were reading peacefully in bed before their father kissed them and their mother turned out the light. Now imagine a shadow creeping across the deserted village square. And there, in the greenhouse, plants grew menacingly—and on the altar lay an ominous book containing holy scriptures. And a package full of uniforms appeared as if from nowhere before the fence. And then a strange song sounded in the sky. Picture it clearly—like a crack in the firmament. Imagine it drawing people from their beds, and together they gazed up at the sky. And with hearts pounding in their chests, they wondered what was approaching them. An angel? A drone? A deadly missile that burns and destroys everything? We're at the beginning of a great story. There is no fatherland and no reason for murder and war. And everyone lives only in the here and now. Imagine that. It's easy if you try. Welcome to IMAGINE.

Imagine

Schauspiel Köln

Throughout his life, Goethe worked on his magnum opus, FAUST, the drama he uniquely called a "tragedy" among his works. Enigmatic and luminous, it stands there in epic scope—a seemingly endless succession of scenes and reflections. What holds this tragedy together at its core? There is Faust, the eternally restless one, who sees the world as prey and time as a pledge. There is Mephistopheles, the antithesis, literally in Faust's shadow. There is Gretchen, innocent and beautiful in the face of ruin. And there is the light that filters through all the cracks in fate. The majority of the tragedy takes place in the dead of night. This darkness is repeatedly pierced by fire and flashes of light—like the flash of a photograph. In 1928, the Russian photographer Alexander Rodchenko described photography as a "struggle between eternity and the moment" and continued: "With its emergence, there can no longer be a general, unchanging image. A person is not merely a unity; they are multifaceted and dialectical." “Stay a while, my moment.” Kay Voges stages FAUST as precisely this struggle and, together with live photographer Marcel Urlaub, transforms the stage space into both a room of light and a darkroom.

fist

WAR AND PEACE is the title of Calle Fuhr's new investigative stage essay, created in collaboration with the independent media outlet CORRECTIV. Based on journalistic research, the performance recounts the rise of Vladimir Putin, the authoritarian developments of the last 25 years in Russia, and the war against Ukraine. At the same time, Fuhr turns his attention to Germany: to the energy policy of recent decades, the dependence on Russian gas, and the resulting supply crisis. Current rearmament measures, the immense state spending on defense, and the debate surrounding the reintroduction of conscription also come into focus. WAR AND PEACE demonstrates how geopolitical decisions are changing our daily lives – and poses the question of how Germany defines its defense capabilities and its future security policy.

War and Peace

Austrian prison poet, ladies' man, journalist, convicted murderer: Jack Unterweger was many things, and he played numerous roles throughout his life. During his first imprisonment, for the murder of an 18-year-old girl, he published his first novel, which brought him immediate fame. A petition for his release was signed by, among others, Elfriede Jelinek, Ernst Jandl, and Günter Grass. After 15 years in prison, he was released: Unterweger became a prime example of "successful rehabilitation." But in 1994, he was convicted a second time—for the murder of nine women. UNTERWEGER explores this irrational fascination—an evening about lust and compassion, attraction and disgust, judgment and mercy.

Unterweger

Carlswerk

Storm and thunder, unbridled passion, incest and divine wrath - all of this is already brewing in the first bars of the orchestral prelude to DIE WALKÜRE and gives a hint of what is to follow. In DIE WALKÜRE, the first day of the stage festival play DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN, Wagner focuses on the generation of Wotan's descendants: On the sibling pair Siegmund and Sieglinde, who, after many years of separation, meet fatefully and fall in love with each other. And on the Valkyries, Brünnhilde and her eight sisters, whose task it is to bring the heroes fallen in battle to Valhalla. When Wotan's wife Fricka learns of the incestuous relationship between Siegmund and Sieglinde, she demands that Wotan put an end to it. So Wotan orders his favourite daughter Brünnhilde to overthrow Siegmund in his battle against his rival Hunding. But Brünnhilde protects Siegmund against Wotan’s command. As punishment, Wotan puts Brünnhilde into a deep sleep and ignites a circle of fire around her, which only one without fear can pass through...

Die Walküre

Cologne Opera

From a deep E-flat major chord, time and space are lifted, and on the waves of the Rhine, a world unfolds with gods, dwarves, giants and creatures of nature. However, the paradisiacal primordial state does not last long: After the Nibelung Alberich is spurned by the Rhinemaidens, he decides to renounce love forever and seize the gold from the depths of the Rhine. From this, he now forges a ring that grants him world power. But the father of the gods, Wotan, also wants to possess the ring. With the help of the fire god Loge, he actually succeeds in stealing the ring from Alberich. However, Alberich curses the ring: Misfortune shall befall its owner - a prophecy that will soon be fulfilled for the first, but not the last time. Richard Wagner created with DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN a parable about the origin and end of the world and realised his radical idea of a total work of art, in which text, music and stage action form a symbiosis. Wagner's endless melody and his leitmotif technique, which he had already developed in DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER and LOHENGRIN, reach an as yet unprecedented complexity in THE RING. With the creation of the RING tetralogy, Wagner also solidified the plan for his own festival theatre as a venue. At the request of his patron King Ludwig II, the premiere of RHEINGOLD took place on 22 September 1869 at the National Theatre of Munich. The audience, which was largely composed of professionals and art connoisseurs who had travelled from afar, expressed enthusiastic applause. Wagner's vision of performing the entire DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN  in his own festival theatre finally became a reality in 1876 in Bayreuth. Director Paul-Georg Dittrich, who has already introduced himself to Cologne with his production of DER ZWERG, will stage a new RING. In RHEINGOLD, he embarks on a search for the childlike origin of the world. What happens when free, yet unencumbered imagination is instrumentalised in a power-obsessed society? The musical direction is under the internationally sought-after conductor Marc Albrecht, who returns to the podium of the Gürzenich Orchestra after DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN.

The Rhinegold

Recreating reality is all well and good, according to Giuseppe Verdi, "but inventing reality is better, far better". And what sort of reality he invented in his Troubadour opera: Swapped children, avenged mothers, sacrificed lovers and more... An almost mythical tale full of unbelievable twists and turns that repeatedly put all the characters right into a state of emergency. Verdi was far more concerned with the credibility of the emotions and not so much with the credibility of the plot itself: Singing as a kind of utopia, as the opening of a space that does not exist in recreated reality. In his staging of Verdi's opera, director Paul-Georg Dittrich goes in search of exactly these moments.

Costume Designer

Mona Ulrich

Events

Past events

3 - 25 May, 2026

Imagine · Bühnen Köln

Apr 30 - May 17, 2026

fist · Bühnen Köln

About

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