“I like modeling old people. There’s more going on on the face than when I have to build the young hero. Or even worse: beautiful women. Then I’d rather be the old witch,” says Peter Lutz. This time a special task awaited the puppet maker and player from the Black Forest: he built “Anton Bruckner” for the Kuddelmuddel children’s cultural center in Linz. “There are a few, but not that many, photos, paintings and busts. I look at them and pick out the most beautiful expressions.” He also listened to some music for inspiration: “If I can get people to recognize him, that’s enough. I paid a little attention to building a little grumpy old gentleman,” he explains lovingly.
When Mr. Bruckner blinks
Bruckner’s character is more in the hands of the players, his challenge is primarily of a technical nature, “that the doll can stand beautifully, sit down, and move like a human being.” And Bruckner’s folding mouth is “elegant, simple and durable to build, so that no threads break inside.”
The person who trained at the Ernst Busch drama school in Berlin spent around two weeks building Bruckner, who is around 50 centimeters tall and weighs one and a half kilos with his wooden limbs. “A certain amount of weight in the middle body is important so that he can sit down and not slip off the chair for a long time.” When did a work succeed for him? “When the viewer says: ‘Ah, I wasn’t even looking at the players anymore.’ Or thinks the character blinked when he can’t.”
Kuddelmuddel leader Manfred Forster on the piece: “We bring Anton to the people”
Anton Bruckner and his work are worthy of being noticed and remembered. “The Strange Mr. Bruckner” lets the composer himself, as a puppet, tell regarding his life in the Kuddelmuddel puppet theater of the same name for everyone aged ten and over. “It’s a lot regarding emotions,” says Manfred Forster, head of the Linz Children’s Cultural Center. Director Hans-Jochen Menzel is fond of “The Revoluzzer Bruckner”: “He remained true to himself, despite the great criticism of his music,” for example from critic Eduard Hanslick, who the audience also encounters. “The Little Doubt” sits on the master’s neck as a hand puppet. Bruckner never gave up, which is why the piece “should be an encouragement for young people,” says Forster.
Bruckner’s music is played live by the Spring String Quartet. “We are concentrating on his symphonic work, which contains many small sound spaces,” says arranger Philipp Pleßmann. After the premiere with the players Annika Pilstl and Dorothee Carls on Friday in the Brucknerhaus in Linz, a tour through Upper Austria and Germany follows. The mobile piece (approx. 65 minutes) can also be booked, for example for schools.
Infos: 2/2, 10 a.m.; February 3, 4 p.m.; February 6, 9 a.m.; February 7, 9:30 a.m.; March 17, 4 p.m., March 18, 10 a.m., tickets: 0732 77 52 30, brucknerhaus.at, kuddelmuddel.at
Author
Karin Schütze
Culture editor
Karin Schütze
