The Brenner Pass: A swathe of mountains in an idyllic landscape and a border crossing between Austria and Italy. Eighty years ago, a relatively unknown crime took place here. High-ranking Nazi officials like Josef Mengele and Adolf Eichmann fled the Allies' grasp and their just punishment on secret smugglers' routes across the green border, first to Italy and from there to the world. And they had help from the local population. Miriam Unterthiner's new play "Blood Bread" is about the so-called "Rat Line," as this escape route was dubbed. It will receive the Kleist Prize for Young Dramatic Artists in 2025 and will premiere at Theater Aachen. The "Blood Bread" is a metaphor for repressed guilt: The soil on which this happened produces the bread we are meant to eat today. Can we chew, swallow, and digest it? Or can we no longer get it down? Poetically condensed and at the same time concrete, virtuosic and powerful, with subtle humor and great images, "Blutbrot" literally digs into the past and builds a bridge to the present.

Blood bread

Kammer

When Agamemnon returns from the Trojan War, bringing with him the seer Cassandra as "war booty," he falls into a trap. His wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus murder him in revenge for Agamemnon's sacrifice of his own daughter Iphigenia to ensure fair winds toward Troy. One bloodbath breeds another, and the siblings Orestes and Electra avenge their father's death on their mother. To end the family curse, a citizens' court is convened to decide Orestes' fate. "The Oresteia" is not only the only completely surviving ancient drama trilogy, it is also the first written account of a democratic vote. Its author, Aeschylus, had witnessed the end of a tyranny and the first steps toward democracy in Athens in his youth. In Florian Hertweck's production of all three parts, including a prologue with the backstory of the Tantalus Curse, great ancient tragedy meets participatory theater, "true crime" meets rap theater. He most recently staged the rap spectacle "House of Karls," and now Hertweck and the ensemble are turning their attention to one of the oldest texts in literature: classical, pop, political, performative, and cinematic.

The Oresteia

Theater Aachen

London, 1912. In front of the Opera House, linguist Professor Higgins notices flower seller Eliza Doolittle, who chatters away in a rough "Cockney" dialect. Fascinated and horrified, Higgins bets that his linguistic methods can transform Eliza into a "gentlewoman" in just a few months. She is to demonstrate her skills at the Ascot races and the Diplomatic Ball. The question remains, however, who is "educating" whom. For the emancipated Eliza also turns Higgins' life upside down.

My Fair Lady

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

Podcast link: https://youtu.be/4hagYvrYbuM

The Artelize Podcast and Kasper Holten - Pedefining Opera for the modern world

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36M5Hi6O80

The Artelize Podcast - A legacy of innovation in Opera: Celebrating Marc A. Scorca

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59E40S_EQSY

The Artelize Podcast: A love letter that was never sent

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THv6htilWtI

The Artelize Podcast and Adolfo Corrado: Mediterranean flavors, opera and social media

A story about growing up and becoming an adult, about feeling "very big and very small," about encounters with the unfamiliar, and the question: Who am I when I'm constantly changing? Lewis Carroll, a mathematician by profession, sends little Alice on a journey full of unpredictable twists and turns and logical contradictions in his magnum opus. The fantastically crazy creatures she encounters in Wonderland—the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, the Queen of Hearts, and the egg-shaped Humpty Dumpty—are cult figures. Director Nikolas Darnstädt stages "Alice" as a musical adventure about the power of imagination: As long as we dream and tell each other stories, we continually discover that the world could be completely different. Like Darnstädt, costume designer Laura Kirst is also working in Aachen for the first time. For set designer Sina Manthey, however, it's a reunion; she previously created the magical underwater worlds for the family play "The Fisherman and His Wife." The soundtrack and original songs are provided by actor-musician Malcolm Kemp.

Alice in Wonderland

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

Christmas concert

Eurogress Aachen

A deep blue, sparkling starry sky with a crescent moon overhead, upon which the star-flaming Queen of the Night floats effortlessly in – yes, this stage set is an icon, a true classic like "The Magic Flute" itself. It was designed by the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel in 1815 for a Berlin performance. Around ten years later, he and Peter Cremer designed the new theater building for the Theater Aachen. The famous sets from Schinkel's "Magic Flute" became a source of inspiration for Aachen artist Tim Berresheim, who, with exuberant imagination and computer-aided art, further developed the mystically twisted worlds between vining nature, temples, and starry skies. Together with director Geertje Boeden and costume designer Sarah Antonia Rung, he explores the riddles of this magical fairytale opera: Does good and evil exist? Who can Tamino, Papageno, and Pamina trust on their journey? Equipped with magical instruments that can bring peace to the world and with great hope of finding love along the way, the three attempt to overcome the power games of their parents' generation. A multi-layered, visually stunning "Magic Flute" in a version for school classes and the whole family.

The Magic Flute

Theater Aachen is a house of art, social debate, encounters, and much more. Is it also a haunted house? After all, its column-lined walls are now turning 200 years old. Wilke Weermann will explore the terribly beautiful stories they might tell. The author and director is known for his atmospherically densely composed theater evenings, citing genres such as science fiction and horror and contrasting them with subtle, subtle humor. He received the 2023 Kurt Hübner Directing Award for his play "Unheim," which explores the debate about housing shortages as a futuristic-comedy ghost story. At Theater Aachen, Weermann will devote himself to the great American master of gothic literature, Edgar Allan Poe, weaving his most gripping tales into a new horror story about dark family secrets and repressed guilt.

The Fall of the House of Usher

At Lisa Klingenburg's toddler concerts, even the youngest children have the opportunity to move or simply listen to classical music of various styles! This provides a diverse approach to the sounds of the instruments and the stories the music tells.

Events in Aachen this month

Blood bread

Theater Aachen

The Oresteia

Theater Aachen

My Fair Lady

Theater Aachen

Mysteryland

Theater Aachen

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast - A ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast: A l...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

Alice in Wonderland

Theater Aachen

L'elisir d'amore / The lo...

Theater Aachen

Christmas concert

Sinfonieorchester Aachen

The Magic Flute

Theater Aachen

The Fall of the House of ...

Theater Aachen

2nd Crawling Concert: "Ga...

Sinfonieorchester Aachen