Name: Duke Bluebeard's Castle
Start: 2026-07-15T19:00:00
Location: Theater Aachen

Christopher Ward

Theater Aachen

In the "Navel," people live like they're in an amusement park with roller coasters, cotton candy, and mascots – while on the other side of the wall that borders this paradise, in the "Rand," precarious conditions and poverty prevail. People from the "Rand" regularly move to the "Navel," partly to provide a better life for their families. The father of "She," the protagonist of this play, once left his family to work in the "Navel" – and never returned. Years later, "She" is grown up and follows in his footsteps. She hasn't spoken her native language from the "Rand" for a long time anyway. In the "Navel," there's work, roller coasters, perhaps a future...

Mysteryland

Kammer

The doting Nemorino loves Adina. Hopelessly. Because she seems to only have eyes for the boastful Belcore. And anyway, Adina would rather live free and unattached. A magic potion is needed that will make the other person fall in love. How convenient that the miracle doctor Dulcamara has a cure for everything and, for his already scarce money, talks Nemorino into buying a love potion. As it turns out, it's just ordinary red wine.

L'elisir d'amore / The love potion

Everyone's talking about artificial intelligence. Tech companies and governments are pumping billions into this promising key technology of the future. It's supposed to revolutionize virtually all areas of human life. Yet the idea isn't fundamentally new: As early as 1816, Mary Shelley had her Swiss scientist Victor Frankenstein create an artificial intelligence—his famous monster has been roaming pop culture for a good 200 years. Like today's "large language models" (e.g., ChatGPT), it learns through observation and imitation. Its clumsy brutality touches and frightens us, just as AI simultaneously provokes euphoria and apocalyptic fear. But what if these two reaction patterns weren't contradictory at all: Is the desire for invention perhaps rooted in a longing for self-abolition? Are we deliberately replacing ourselves with a new, better form of existence—more rational and less destructive than the obsolete human species? In his playful reinterpretation, director Tristan Linder connects Mary Shelley's classic with current technological debates, employing the very tools that are also the subject. A theatrical evening that oscillates between science fiction and creation myth, between hope and fear.

Frankenstein

Aachen in the year 2044. After the National Alliance for Germany (NAfD) emerged as the strongest party in the 2029 federal election, democracy was gradually dismantled and an authoritarian regime established. Freedom of expression no longer exists, artistic production is under state control, people who cannot provide proof of German ancestry are "denaturalized" on a daily basis, and digital surveillance is omnipresent.

2044. Chronicle of the Future

After a sleepless night reading Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin," the concept for Tchaikovsky's new opera was born: "I am looking for an intimate yet powerful drama, based on conflicts I have experienced or seen myself, conflicts that can touch me deeply." Tchaikovsky transforms the novel into a lyrical chamber play in which unbridled love, sharp rejection, and a deadly duel shake the emotional worlds of young people: The young Tatiana, engrossed in her books, falls head over heels in love with the daredevil Onegin. In a passionate letter, she confesses her love to him. But he harshly rejects her, instead having fun with her sister Olga and killing his good friend Lensky in a duel. After years of wandering, Onegin realizes his missed opportunity.

Eugene Onegin

From the mid-1930s onward, Aachen was a "gateway to freedom" through which people dared to escape persecution by the Nazi regime – across the green border to Belgium or Holland, and from there into the world. In Aachen, the refugees encountered both human trafficking networks and a few "silent heroes" who expected nothing in return for their help. Against the backdrop of this historical situation, "Oppenhof. Mohren. Cohn" tells a story of resistance, dissidence, despair, and courage. Inspired by the lives of historical figures such as the former mayor of Aachen, Franz Oppenhoff, the communist Josef Mohren, and the resistance fighter Marianne Cohn, the piece addresses the questions of whether a young woman on the run will be helped, whether a work of art branded as "degenerate" can be saved from destruction, and who stands in solidarity with whom. Protest and partisan songs and new songs combine to form an overall musical concept; a gripping plot is intertwined with documentary material.

Oppenhoff. Mohren. Cohn

"Is this my home, my land, my place? Am I supposed to fill the void of an emptiness here?" In Dinçer Güçyeter's novel "Our Germany Fairytale," two generations of women—mother and grandmother—constitute the voice of Fatma, who comes to Nettetal in 1965 as the wife of a Turkish guest worker. Through powerful images, poetry, monologues, dialogues, prayers, and dreams, the novel tells of hard work and great strength, of old gender roles and the dawn of a new beginning, of uprooting and longing. It is a homage to women and tells a piece of German history in a new, sensual, and humorous language. Güçyeter's debut novel, published by "mikrotext," was awarded the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in 2023. Director Antigone Akgün, who already thrilled audiences in Aachen with her production of "The Garden of Earthly Delights," is adapting the novel for the Kammer stage.

Our Germany fairytale

Hardly any other poet has so interwoven her literature with music, opera, and film, and hardly any has so insightfully taken a stand against patriarchy. To mark the 100th birthday of the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann, composers Karola Obermüller and Peter Gilbert, together with librettist Tina Hartmann, are developing the first musical-theatrical adaptation of her novel "Malina," exploring how closely Bachmann's poetic discourse is interwoven with singing. We encounter a nameless first-person narrator who lives with her male alter ego, Malina, while experiencing a seeming happiness with Ivan, one characterized by conformity and artistic silencing.

Malina

Nuclear physicist Alice conducts research at CERN in Geneva when she's not arguing with her pubescent son Luke, who doesn't want to live in Switzerland. Her sister Jenny lives in Luton, East Anglia, sells health insurance over the phone, is an anti-vaccination campaigner, and cares for their demented mother, Karen. The sisters couldn't be more different. Or as Jenny once put it: "I'm Forrest Gump and you're the damn Wizard of Oz." But is it really that simple? "The mosquito, this tiny, fragile creature that you can kill with your thumb, is responsible for more deaths than any other animal," says Alice's partner. Are people without self-responsibility and reason just as dangerous as mosquitoes? In "Mosquitoes," psychology and science, fate and self-responsibility mingle in a dazzling drama about social divides that extend into family life. Director Jenke Nordalm and the ensemble pull out all the stops for this story that is as emotional as it is highly intelligent.

Mosquitoes

It is one of the greatest love stories of all time and the epitome of romantic, passionate love: "The most excellent and lamentable tragedy of Romeo and Juliet." The children of two feuding families in medieval Verona, in the age of plague and political marriages, fall instantly in love, marry secretly, are driven apart by family feuds, and ultimately die a tragic death. Their passionate love lasts only a short time – they spend only a single night together. What would have become of them if they had had more time? A whole life, perhaps? Would their love have survived? And if so, how? Director Anaïs Durand-Mauptit's production of the Shakespearean blockbuster frames the 500-year-old love story with a narrative about love in the present day. How do we love today, and what hurdles do we overcome in doing so? How diverse are the forms of relationships, concepts of love, and couple constellations of our time – and do we still long for that great romantic feeling that seeks to overcome even death?

Romeo and Juliet

Sister Angelica has lived in the convent for years, secluded and devoted entirely to tending the monastery herb garden. In her heart, she harbors a great longing for her son, whom she once had to leave with her aunt. Years later, her aunt pays her a visit and urges Angelica to renounce her inheritance. Almost incidentally, Angelica learns of her son's tragic death. She reaches for the poison – then, in the distance, she hears angelic voices...

Sister Angelica

Walls dripping with blood, seven locked doors, darkness everywhere – Duke Bluebeard's castle is an eerie place! But Bluebeard's lover Judith is determined: she wants to follow him into his fortress, to bring light into the eerie darkness with her love. That's why she demands the keys to the seven locked doors. She penetrates ever deeper into the secrets of her lover and his castle, opening door after door – what will she find behind them? In 1911, Béla Bartók and his librettist Béla Balázs used the fairy tale "La barbe bleu" to create an expressionistic psychological drama in which the eponymous castle plays the main role as a symbol of the male psyche. The libretto uses cinematic lighting effects, which is why we are staging the work using film. An important component of this semi-staged "light opera" are video projections by Max Ophüls Prize winners Sascha Vredenburg and Cedric Klaus.