Ballhaus - Schedule, Program & Tickets

Drama with sport and ballet

Playing theater, dancing and doing sports - all this was possible in the Ballhaus. Theater has been performed at Mirabellgarten for 400 years. The first theater building was built in 1625 and was called the Ballhaus. In fact, the impressive building with its open roof truss, three galleries and almost 50 meters in length had several functions, namely as a theater, dance palace and sports hall.

On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of today's Landestheater, John von Düffel writes a play that brings the prehistory to life as it might have been. An ambitious architect plans the new building as a place for the civic community, but of course disputes about its use arise early on. Sport, dance and drama clash during the day, but at night the ballroom becomes a place of longings and dreams. Suddenly, the plot of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" takes shape there in an interplay of disciplines. Lovers search for and find a place of trials and tribulations, encounter elves and a theater ensemble and experience a crazy night with fabulous dancing shadow creatures. The next morning, nobody really knows what was real and what was not.

William Shakespeare's plays flourished in London when the Ballhaus was being built in Salzburg, and so the founding theatrical eras come together creatively in this play, which complements "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with the added framework story. The acting ensemble will be joined by dancers from the ballet division, and Salzburg sports clubs are invited to use the Ballhaus as a showcase.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and John von Düffel (*1966) are the authors of the bridge from then to now. In the Landestheater, on the site of the former ballroom that Prince Archbishop Paris Lodron had built in 1625 for the "purpose of ball games", for the amusement of court society and to experience theater, their texts combine to form a play.

Carl Philip von Maldeghem and Reginaldo Oliveira's world premiere of the commissioned work by John von Düffel celebrates the game - both sporting and theatrical - as an interdisciplinary celebration of drama, ballet and sport. Stage designer Thomas Mika creates a visual reminiscence of the ballroom of yesteryear.

Subject to change without notice.