Nikolaus Habjan ignores demise in Gmunden

Most individuals concern it. “I do not give a rattling about demise!” guarantees Nikolaus Habjan, nevertheless. The 36-year-old from Graz can even be making this clear on July third within the Gmunden Municipal Theater with the Philharmonia Schrammeln in a joint program of the identical title. The gifted puppet theater actor and opera director has additionally made a world title for himself as a whistler.

After 15 years on the conservatory, he realized as a young person “that I can whistle significantly better than I might ever play the violin.” He then plunged into “a serious means of attending to know myself” till “the coordination between lungs, diaphragm, tongue and lips labored. I merely figured it out for myself and I do not even know if I might educate it to anybody,” though he has lengthy been an expert who practices a number of hours a day. “On good days I can handle 4 and a half octaves.” He feels “completely comfy” within the excessive notes specifically. That is the place I’ve essentially the most energy and one of the best agility. I am extra of a coloratura soprano.”

Along with the Philharmonia Schrammeln, made up of members of the Vienna Philharmonic, he’s this time constructing a bridge from Mozart to Strauss to Ziehrer, Schrammel and Georg Kreisler. “Viennese songs are sometimes about demise. Kreisler additionally wrote ‘Demise, that have to be a Viennese’ – we thought that ignoring demise could be an exquisite factor,” says Habjan, who’s reviving an outdated artwork type of the so-called “higher circles”.

The fiaker Johann Tranquillini (1855–1895), generally known as Baron Jean, was as soon as Vienna’s most well-known whistler. “He whistled with the Schrammel brothers and was tremendously supported by Crown Prince Rudolf.” Austria’s final skilled whistler was Jeanette Baroness Lips von Lipstrill (1924–2005). Why has whistler been forgotten? “It was at all times linked to folks,” Habjan remembers, additionally recalling the cleverness of Ilse Werner and Roger Whittaker. “Tweeters are arising once more. If folks begin whistling now, I am blissful and proud that I could have impressed them. I do not actually imagine in competitors within the inventive sector,” says the primary, “however hopefully not the final” whistler in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. As a lot as it’s about “good humor” when he whistles at demise in Gmunden, the mission of puppeteer Nikolaus Habjan is critical: his play “F. Zawrel – genetically and socially inferior” concerning the former “Spiegelgrund baby” and Nazi sufferer who died in 2015 will likely be carried out for the 630th time in September within the Josefstadt. His play “Böhm” concerning the conductor and Nazi sympathizer premiered in Berlin simply two weeks in the past. “Straight after the Nazi period, there’s nonetheless rather a lot slumbering that may now fall on our heads. It’s scary to see how rapidly our society is turning into brutal once more, now that there are hardly any modern witnesses left. The truth that there have been so many assaults on politicians just lately is a brand new improvement that frightens me past perception.”

With “L’Orfeo” 2025 in Salzburg

Then again, he’s delighted to have been nominated twice for the Austrian Music Theatre Prize this 12 months – for Offenbach’s operetta “La Péricole” on the Theater an der Wien (general manufacturing and course). The viewers also can stay up for the Mozart Week 2025, which can take over his manufacturing of Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo” for the Semperoper Dresden. How does he handle to juggle every little thing? “My mom makes the appointments for me. She has every little thing in her head and likewise builds in free time,” which he himself “at all times forgot” – by no means cared about.

Infos: July 3, 2024, 7.30 p.m., tickets: 07612/ 70630, festwochen-gmunden.at