Conductors are fascinating people: musically of the highest sensitivity, they rule over huge sound bodies as god-like autocrats.
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Böhm
They must have both sensitivity and leadership strength and are sometimes tyrannical, self-important despots whose emotional impulses or finger pointing can set a hundred people in motion.
Like Karl Böhm, one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century. There are almost 87 years of life between birth and burial, which are marked by a deep conflict: on the one hand, Böhm was a great artist, but on the other hand, he was a person who made common cause with National Socialism in order to advance his career.
At Hitler's intercession, Böhm was appointed to the Semperoper in Dresden in 1934 to become the successor of the conductor Fritz Busch, who had been forced by the Nazi regime to resign and emigrate. In 1943, in the middle of World War II, Böhm became director of the Vienna State Opera.
In 1945, the Allied occupation authorities removed him from the position of director because he was too close to the Nazi regime and banned him from performing. After the end of the occupation until 1956, he was entrusted with this office a second time.
In Böhm, the gifted puppeteer and puppet maker Nikolaus Habjan once again deals with the darkest chapter of European history, which also concerns him in other pieces, such as F. Zawrel - Hereditarily Biologically and Socially Inferior.
Böhm was written by the Viennese author Paulus Hochgatterer, who wrote the roles for Nikolaus Habjan and his puppets.
Additional information
Participating artists
Paulus Hochgatterer (Autor/in)
Nikolaus Habjan
