Reforming the Present
 Interview with Christian Stückl

Christian Stückl im Interview mit Simone Lenz
© Goethe-Institut

Leading off this medley of ideas by doers, thinkers, and innovators is Christian Stückl, who is, among many other engagements, director of the Oberammergau Passion Play and artistic director of the Münchner Volkstheater. Simone Lenz met him for an interview.

Interview part 1: Religion

Together or separate? Rebellion or reformation? Protestantism or Catholicism? Religion and nationalism? The state vs. religious freedom?
English subtitles.

"But in any case we need  robust reforms from within."
"Religious freedom can’t mean that anything goes."
"The government should actually stay out off questions of faith."

Interview part 2: Theatre

To preserve or change? Djihad Academy or The Tempest? Aesthetics or content? Staged or exposed? No fear of change!
English subtitles.
 

Christian Stückl

For the fourth time in a row, Christian Stückl has been designated as festival director of the Oberammergau Passion Play 2020. Already at age 27, he established a reputation as a “conservative rebel” by freeing the 400-year-old performing tradition from its anti-Semitic and patriarchal features.

He previously was director at the Münchner Kammerspiele and for more than a decade defined, and injected new energy into, Hofmannsthal’s “Everyman” at the Salzburg Festival. In addition to a host of other engagements, including at the Burgtheater in Vienna, his career includes many extremely successful production such as Pfitzner’s “Palestrina” at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich during the 2008/2009 season. In 2015, he staged the first in-house opera production at the Passion Play Theater in Oberammergau, where he also launched the Heimatsound Festival.

Since 2005, he has organized the Young Directors Festival at the Münchner Volkstheater. In his latest work, a new production of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, he searches for answers to the pressing questions of our time, defined as it is by violence and migration.