The Talisman

As one of Nestroy’s masterpieces and most frequently performed plays, *Der Talisman* offers a critique of the social conditions of his time through brilliant comedy and sharp-tongued dialogue.

“Progress, after all, has a way of seeming much greater than it really is.”
Nestroy

Defying convention, Nestroy uses his outstanding command of language to take a razor-sharp look at the themes of exclusion and opportunism—topics just as relevant today as they were in 1840 at the premiere, in which Nestroy himself played the red-haired outsider Titus Feuerfuchs and his struggle for recognition. Welcome to a world where happiness depends more on appearances than on reality: Everyone here has the same opportunities—almost everyone…

“But do you get it, Tirol, that I left the country—
—because too many people ask me if I can speak German?
Because people ask me where my roots are.
And then they don’t believe me when I say ‘in the Ötztal’?”
Nenda Neururer: Mixed Feelings, 2021

Grotesque, satirical, and scathingly witty: Nenda and musician Bernhard Neumaier will together bring Nestroy’s biting spirit into the present in a musically original way. And with Dominique Schnizer, a proven Nestroy specialist, directing for the first time in Innsbruck. Since 2017, the Austrian director has been devoting himself—with great respect—increasingly to his favorite poet, using his intuition to gently bring the 19th century into the present—and vice versa—with tempo, sharp wit, and depth.