In 1951, Brigitte was still a child when she experienced the first Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) opening event as a moment of hope in post-war Vienna. Now she is over eighty years old and on stage herself. Angelika and Fred met by coincidence in the audience almost forty years ago and are still a couple today. Lukas trained the lights on others for over three decades as a light designer – now he is stepping into the spotlight himself. For the anniversary of the Vienna Festival, artistic director Milo Rau and a cast of over twenty persons rekindle touching, shocking and funny memories as well as memorable scenes from the last 75 years. Fans and haters of the Vienna Festival, actors and amateurs recount absurd experiences and proper scandals. Images from Schlingensief’s container project encounter immersive nightmares; voices of the dead from the beyond blend with a motley polyphonic stage choir. Dead or alive, they all unite to celebrate the magic of theatre. The actors Inge Maux and Samouil Stoyanov guide through a night that brings great moments of collective memory together with personal stories and puts the most theatre-enamoured city in the world itself centre stage.

A production of the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) | Free Republic of Vienna