Weimar: Jacques Offenbach’s “Princess of Trabzon” at the German National Theater in Weimar

Where and when does this theatrical show start? In the forecourt of the theater near the Goethe Schiller monument, performers set up a booth with a cupboard of wax figures. The theater itself is “closed,” according to an inscription on the balcony of the German National Theatre. Because of the epidemic? Or because of savings? However, a lottery is announced on the balcony. The main prize: the property of the theater itself.

Anyone strolling in front of the theater can buy a ticket to the show now, even if they’re already in the middle of the premiere of Jacques Offenbach’s operetta “Die Prinzessin von Trebizont,” which premiered more than 150 years ago. In Offenbach’s work, poor showrunners do not acquire theater property by drawing lots, but become nobles and obtain a castle. But at first they have to cover up an unfortunate incident: the wax figure of the Princess of Trabzon broke her nose, so model Zaneta has to pretend to be a lifeless wax figure to viewers.

Offenbach’s protagonists, like Hoffmann in “Hoffmann’s Tales,” fall in love with waxy and robotic figures more than their surviving counterparts, with virtual reality being less complex than reality. The Weimar version by Anna Weber and Michael Hubner focuses mainly on the current status of the theater itself and the audience as fellow actors. However, the new owners can’t do much with the theater, now opened again in the second act but disposed of, and the stage musicians sleeping in the covered hole at the start.

At least until Casmir buys it a “cultural landscape farmer” and turns the theater into an “experience museum” under the name “Waxworld Weimar”, where some opera scenes like “Lohengrin” or “The Tales of Hoffmann” are mechanically re-enacted. At the opening ceremony, Casimir is celebrated as a patron. In the auditorium, the Weimar opera choir and audience mingled, often indistinguishable.