Name: Carte Blanche for Ekaterina Karpova (Eduard Chumi Prize winner 2025)
Start: 2026-10-25T11:00:00
Location: Casino Bern

Pierre Deppe

Ekaterina Karpova

Anouk Terriez

Yang Lu

Isabelle Magnenat

Bühnen Bern

Three physicists live secluded from the world in a dilapidated villa: Einstein, Newton, and Möbius. The villa belongs to the private sanatorium Les Cerisiers, run by the charming and caring Dr. Mathilde von Zahnd. But then, within a very short time, several murders occur. A detective inspector begins to investigate, and the cover-up of all those involved is blown.

The physicists

City Theatre, Bern

Prosperity, democracy, and freedom in the heart of Europe: That's Switzerland! But this image is deceptive. For a long time, Switzerland was the poorhouse of Europe. And until the 1970s, authorities throughout Switzerland, in the name of law and order, took action against people whose lifestyles did not conform to societal norms. Labeled "work-shy" and "dissolute," young women in particular were arbitrarily placed in institutions – poverty was fought by fighting the poor.

Spind'l… Sp'ich'r – Still'

Vidmarhallen

When the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi decided in 1853 to make a courtesan the heroine of an opera, it was more than unusual; indeed, it was scandalous. Verdi was inspired to create his opera La traviata by the true life story of Marie Duplessis, who had died only a few years earlier – a story immortalized by Alexandre Dumas the Younger in his novel The Lady of the Camellias . Like Dumas, however, Verdi is not concerned with depicting reality, but rather with telling a story, exploring the tightrope walk between fate and self-determination. 

La traviata

Morgana

"I lived for art, I lived for love." In a dictatorship, the singer Floria Tosca fights for her great love, the painter Cavaradossi. Threatened by the ruthless police chief Baron Scarpia, she sees no other way out than to kill him. However, her love for Cavaradossi remains unfulfilled: contrary to their prior agreement, his execution is not staged, but the bullet strikes him dead. In despair, Tosca throws herself to her death. 

Tosca

Can you hear the boards creaking with impatience? Can you feel the curtain trembling with anticipation and the lamps crackling feverishly with excitement? This can only mean one thing: the new season is about to begin, and that calls for a grand celebration! But a proper celebration needs guests, and we have only one motto: the more the merrier! So bring everyone you know and love: whether it's your extended family, your friendly neighbor, your yoga group, or your pen pal from Andalusia – everyone is welcome at our festival, even your tax advisor. 

Theatre Festival

The writer, poet, and essayist Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, born in Lausanne, wrote two novels over 100 years ago that deal with the famous ultimate questions in a way that is both poetic and urgent: What is worth living for? And how do we relate to our own mortality? 

Actors' Apéro #3: Eternal Sun

An evening with Bernese youth
based on the novella by Heinrich von Kleist
in an adaptation by Dorle Trachternach and Joanna Praml
Michael Kohlhaas is furious: At a border crossing, his well-fed horses are confiscated under flimsy pretexts. What Kohlhaas suspected later turns out to be true: The entire operation was illegal. But that's not all. The horses were nearly worked to death, and his farmhand was abused. Kohlhaas wants justice! Instead of support, however, he encounters a corrupt legal system and embarks on a campaign of revenge that escalates violently. 

Kohlhaas

Vidmar Ballettsaal

The Rainbow Bird is a very special bird with magnificent plumage in all the colors of the rainbow. Sadly, it is almost extinct. To save it, a second Rainbow Bird must be found: Kim, Karl, and Feathered friends embark on an imaginative research journey, searching for the Rainbow Bird in the highest treetops, the deepest ocean floor, and the darkest caves.

The Last Rainbow Bird

In the bear pit, all the bears are fast asleep. All of them? No. One little spectacled bear is still awake and can't find peace. So he trudges wearily through the center of Bern. Melodies and sounds drift from a large building, drawing him in – and so he finds himself right in the middle of a concert! The musicians are quite astonished, the singer is breathless – what on earth do you do with a tired little bear who can't fall asleep? Perhaps they can lull him to sleep with songs…

The little spectacled bear is tired

City Theatre Mansard

Joana Mallwitz, one of the most successful conductors of our time and recently featured in the acclaimed documentary portrait " Momentum" in Swiss cinemas, returns to Bern with Gustav Mahler's epochal Symphony No. 9. In his last completed work, Mahler, on the threshold of death, looks back on a world on the brink of collapse just a few years before the outbreak of the First World War. Through musical means, the composer not only senses the pulse of society but also processes his own personal grief.