Name: Viennese Classical in E-flat major
Start: 2026-12-13T11:00:00
Location: Casino Bern

Calogero Presti

Doris Mende

Monika Schindler

Christian Holenstein

Leonardo Miucci

Bühnen Bern

Sergeant Studer has arrested Erwin Schlumpf and taken him to prison, but he doesn't believe Schlumpf is the perpetrator. But who killed salesman Wendelin Witschi? Against the wishes of the authorities, Studer begins his own investigation and becomes entangled in a web of familial and political intrigue. Swiss author Friedrich Glauser wrote the five Sergeant Studer mysteries during the last three years of his life—a period marked by legal guardianship, drug addiction, and stays in psychiatric institutions—and achieved literary fame in the process. In August, his Sergeant will once again be investigating at Villa Morillon.

Sergeant Studer

Villa Morillon Bern

... at Murten Classics

Murten

Victoria Hall, Geneva

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

Chief conductor Krzysztof Urbański dedicates the first symphony concert of the season to one of the great classics of the concert repertoire: Richard Strauss's tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra ). Inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical work of the same name, which deals with the emergence of a superman and the eternal cycle of becoming and passing away, Strauss created a musical cosmos whose suggestive power has also found its way into films such as Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey .

Thus spoke zarathustra

Casino 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

The work of Basel-based writer and painter Adelheid Duvanel is among the most important literary rediscoveries of recent years. In her socially critical, miniature-like narratives, she describes with great precision and empathy the lives, or rather the survival, of those pushed to the margins of our society. We encounter dreamers, drug addicts, single mothers in precarious circumstances, and lonely outsiders. Her texts always contain both: gentleness and harshness, humor and despair, desires and impositions, urban milieu and magical natural states. And hovering above it all is a quiet jubilation at being alive—still, in spite of everything. "Perhaps Duvanel's work is a kind of school of forgiveness," says literary scholar Elsbeth Dangel-Pelloquin.

Miscellaneous

Terzetto

"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? 