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 looking much greater than it really is.”
Nestroy

Defying convention, Nestroy uses his masterful command of language to take a razor-sharp look at the themes of exclusion, opportunism, and (everyday) racism—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 if I can speak German?
Because people ask me where my roots are.
And then they don’t believe me when I say I’m from the Ötztal.”
Nenda Neururer: Mixed Feelings, 2021

Grotesque, satirical, and bitingly sarcastic: Nenda and musician Bernhard Neumaier will together bring Nestroy’s caustic wit into the present day with musical originality. 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 to his favorite poet, skillfully and sensitively bringing the 19th century into the present—and vice versa—with tempo, pointed wit, and depth.