Name: Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Start: 2026-09-27T19:00:00
Location: Theater Basel

Thomas Cilluffo

Nikolai Schukoff

Artur Garbas

Ervin Ahmeti

Stefan Klingele

Rolf Romei

Bert Zander

Andrew Murphy

Sarah Baxter

Thomas Wise

Jasmin Jorias

Ronan Caillet

Solenn' Lavanant Linke

Elliott Carlton Hines

Marius Aron

Patrick Rowan

Christoph Heinrich

Georgia Knower

Carmela Calvano Forte

Eva Buffoni

Elizabeth Picello

Kathrin Krottenthaler

Robin Niedecker

Michael Clark

Geraldine Arnold

Thomas Kleinstück

Benedikt von Peter

Theater Basel

Featuring works by Jiří Kylián, Hans van Manen, and Marco Goecke, this evening brings together three of the most significant styles in dance history and showcases a richly varied array of choreographic styles set to a diverse mix of music ranging from baroque to blues.

Van Manen/Kylián/Goecke

A small town in turmoil. Everyone wants to shoot the wolf themselves. Which wolf? And then there's German chancellor candidate Alice Weidel – does she fit into the townscape of this idyllic pilgrimage site on the Way of St. James? What is actually real? Wolves in sheep's clothing? Queer-hostile queers? Rainbow families with brown attitudes? Of course, this is not a contradiction: in the northern hemisphere, all water vortices and high-pressure areas turn to the right – physics. And how is it in the best democracy in the world? Why do right-wing extremists feel so at home in Switzerland?

The White Madonna of Einsiedeln

Four people, perhaps the very last ones left: Hamm, his servant Clov, and his parents Nell and Nagg. They grapple with power and powerlessness, memory and repression, affection and humiliation, while the world outside falls apart. This standstill lays bare the depths of their relationships, but also reveals absurd humor. A lifelong fascination with Samuel Beckett’s ‹Endspiel› inspired Hungarian composer György Kurtág to write his first opera in 2018. Kurtág’s 100th birthday marks the occasion for the Swiss premiere of his work in Basel, where the composer regularly worked. Today, his estate is preserved here at the Paul Sacher Foundation. In his Basel debut, director David Marton frees the characters from the prison of Beckett’s dark room and transports them into the open air: onto a rooftop terrace in Márton Ágh’s post-apocalyptic urban landscape.

Fin de partie

«Twenty captains of industry are flying overhead, while millions are starving below». Kasimir, who lost his job as a chauffeur that morning, watches the Zeppelin fly by with a frown, while Karoline wants to enjoy herself at the Oktoberfest. In 117 scenes, Horváth describes how the couple's love is shattered by social conditions. In Karin Henkel's production, Kasimir and Karoline meet another tragic figure from Horváth's universe: Elisabeth from ‹Glaube Liebe Hoffnung› has given up on life before it could even begin. Her story is based on a real court case that Horváth wrote about together with court reporter Lukas Kristl.

Kasimir and Karoline and the Dance with Death

Riding a rickety horse, Don Quixote traverses the plains of La Mancha. His boundless imagination transforms windmills into giants, taverns into castles, and a stranger into an immortal lover. Cervantes’ famous novel defies all conventions. Thousands of adaptations have already failed spectacularly in their attempt to retell his story. Theater artist Thom Luz follows in the footsteps of the dreamy knight, crisscrossing through music history all the way to his deathbed. But Don Quixote isn’t ready: fleeing his death scene, he hides within works spanning five centuries. This poetic game of confusion keeps conjuring up new castles in the air, leaving only one question: Who is right—the dreamer or reality?

Don Quijote

April 29, 2008: The discoverer of LSD takes one last trip for his final journey. At his deathbed, an elite circle of seasoned psychonauts accepts the task of completing his life's work: healing the world with the help of a new peace drug LSD-1000. But the details, including the chemical formulas, fall into the wrong hands. A turbulent chase through secret laboratories and the back rooms of power begins. Who will be able to taste the drop of enlightenment, and how will these chosen ones react? After ‹Immer Ärger mit Bartleby›, Rocko Schamoni and Jörg Pohl take us on a crazy journey across Basel and beyond, into a world beyond the gates of perception.

Die Ritter des Mutterkorns

As one of the most exciting singers of our time, Nicole Chevalier has been working with Verdi's ‹La traviata› for over fourteen years. At that time still a member of the ensemble in Hanover, Chevalier is now a guest at all the leading houses in Europe: Vienna State Opera, Covent Garden London, Opera de Paris, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg Festival and many more.

La traviata

With ‹Dark Matter›, Ballett Basel invites you to an entertaining, intense evening. Five miniatures provide a multifaceted insight into the unique world of Marco Goecke and condense over 25 years of his work into a compact, impressive experience. The format is compiled anew each season and brings together solos, duets and short ensemble works from over 100 works - choreographic gems that have been performed worldwide and can now be experienced up close on the small stage of Theater Basel. Danced by an ensemble that carries Goecke's works by the umbilical cord, as it were, and has long since internalised his unmistakable style. The intimate solo ‹Tué› sets three extraordinary women in a sensitive interplay to the music of French chansonnière Barbara. The suspenseful duet ‹Midnight Raga› unfolds in the deep blue of midnight and transports the listener to a mystical Indian night. With ‹Äffi›, a repertoire classic, Goecke's style suddenly became famous in 2005 - a solo that is still regarded today as the epitome of his nervously vibrating style of movement. In ‹All Long Dem Day› and ‹Nachtmerrie›, true-to-life scenes about closeness, separation, change and hope are created to Nina Simone and Lady Gaga. Accompanied by works from a wide range of musical styles, this string of pearls of signature pieces spans an arc between darkness and light as well as drama and lyricism. In this way, the «dark matter» that makes Goecke's work so timeless and touching becomes tangible.

Dark Matter

In 1985, Rocko Schamoni gave his first concerts as the opening act for the Golden Lemons, at that time still under his early pseudonym ‹Roddy Dangerblood›. In 1986 he accompanied Die Toten Hosen on ‹Tournee›, from then on as ‹King Rocko Schamoni›. Since then, he has performed well over 1000 gigs, released over 20 longplayers with his own band ‹Little Machine›, with ‹Studio Braun› and ‹Fraktus›, written 10 books, produced 10 theatre plays, founded the Golden Pudel Club and accompanied various other projects. On this anniversary tour, the «King» - as his close friends may call him - will present a cross-section of his musical and literary work. He will be accompanied by Joachim Franz Büchner. If you miss it - you weren't there.

40 Jahre King Rocko Schamoni

Captain Ahab is obsessed with the urge to take revenge on the giant white sperm whale that tore off his leg. Whoever spots Moby Dick first receives a gold coin. The men who earn their living as whalers fall under the spell of the charismatic captain and become increasingly entangled in Ahab’s vengeful obsession. ‹Moby Dick› was originally staged in Hamburg starting in 2013 with an eight-person cast. The co-directors Antú Romero Nunes and Jörg Pohl adapted this groundbreaking collaboration into a solo performance under pandemic conditions. The play has been on the program in Basel without interruption for five years.

Moby Dick - das Solo

Christoph Marthaler makes texts by Basel artist Dieter Roth (1930 - 1998) resound in a pharmacy. Here they touch the heart, kidneys, stomach and intestines. The tear ducts are also affected, as Roth wrote a so-called sea of tears. Five marvellous pharmacists and a wonderful customer bathe in these tears in a decidedly unsentimental way. The prescription they write for life is a poem. The guest performance during Art Basel is presented by the Laurenz Foundation, the sponsoring foundation of Schaulager in Münchenstein/Basel. Schaulager also looks after Dieter Roth's former studio space ‹Selbstturm, Löwenturm› from the collection of the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation near the Kunstmuseum Basel | Gegenwart.

Das Weinen (Das Wähnen)

«I am young, rich, and educated; and I am unhappy, neurotic, and alone.» These words open ‹Mars›, the cult book of the early 1980s. Raised in affluence, Zurich native Fritz Angst feels cheated out of life and raised to death by the bourgeois coldness of his world. Shortly before losing his battle with cancer in 1976, he wrote a passionate tirade under the name Fritz Zorn: his illness was not a personal fate, but a reflection of social decay. The book became a scandalous point of reference for the angry Swiss youth of the 1980s.

Mars

A spectacular founding of a city: Benedikt von Peters’ spatial staging invites the audience to wander through the supposed paradise city of Mahagonny. Here, there is endless pleasure and everything is permitted, as long as you can pay – «but something is missing!». To escape the emptiness, the inhabitants eat and drink themselves to death, fuck and box their way to the grave. Only in Jim Mahoney does the idea of a more humane existence quietly take root.