VARIOUS 2023
-FASTELOVEND ZESAMME-
Press release: Cologne 08/26/2022
Presentation of the new "Zillche"
Foto_vvg-koeln.de
Divertissements 2023
FAST LOVED ZESAMME!
Divertissements by Lajos Wenzel on the founding of the Cologne Carnival 200 years ago.
Plot:
For far too long, the people of Cologne have been thirsting for street carnivals, costume balls, Shrove Monday parades and joint celebrations.
Some even think they have forgotten how to properly celebrate Fastelovend.
Not so the four friends from Cologne Änni, Stina, Liss and Jriet.
For her, Fastelovend is the center of her life and her heart spills over when the drum rolls.
The four women have it in their genes, the special Cologne feeling with bumblebees up their butts
and the longing for confetti in the dark season,
that makes the people of the Rhineland a unique people.
But why is that and where does it come from?
Why do the four of them stick to the traditional carnival despite many procrastinators
and plan your Fastelovend full of longing and confidence?
The explanation can be found in their respective pasts.
Because all four families have been living in the large Cologne companies and organizations for generations:
"Cologne Carnival Festival Committee", "Red Sparks", "Hellige Knäächte und Mägde" and "The Great One of 1823".
In all four families, mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers passed on the love for the respective society.
The four women want to build on these roots in the anniversary year 2023,
slip into the roles of their ancestors and make their way into the past together.
We experience with them a look back at the founding of the first Cologne carnival exactly 200 years ago.
At that time it was the Prussians who wanted to stop the hustle and bustle on the Rhine.
Anni and Stina celebrate with the market people and craftsmen as rag clowns and clowns,
colorfully costumed, wild parties.
Liss and Jriet meet with the bourgeois society for posh masked festivals.
However, both groups are united by the suddenly necessary fight against the Prussians,
for whom every cheerfulness is a thorn in their side.
All Prussians? No! The Prussian secretary Otto von Stiesel enjoys the colourful, informal hustle and bustle
and the four women use the young, dashing man to implement their idea.
You are looking for something that connects you, you want to break up the stiff amusement and at the same time steer the wild partying along:
a "Ordering Committee" should take the reins
Liss wants to persuade her husband to do it.
Together against the Prussian spoilsports
Jriet, who likes to see her husband in tails and is at home with the ladies and gentlemen of higher society,
becomes the mother of "Great of 1823",
while Änni the city soldiers, popularly "Red Sparks" called, resurrects
and stina her dance group "Bright Boys and Maids" convinced of an engagement in the carnival.
Together you invent one "Hero Carnival", the first Shrove Monday procession and all sorts of merrymaking.
Despite some quarrels and many mix-ups and misunderstandings, we stand together,
when it comes to the Prussian spoilsports.
And then it gets serious. The Prussians actually ban all carnival activities
with new noise protection reports, horse bans, safety concerns and all imaginable laws.
So it is a good thing that the women in Cologne are also well versed in cliques
and with their "connections" a Cologne delegation an appointment with King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm III., procure.
The Cologne delegation promises to erect a beautiful equestrian statue of the Emperor on the Heumarkt "soon".
King Friedrich Wilhelm III. sends his "cucumber troop" to the Spreewald and announces:
"Put a red rose in the guns, take the ammo pouches and throw sweets among the people.
The "Red Sparks" are supposed to watch over morale and decency in Cologne
and as the custodian of customs, ensure calm, peace and balance in Cologne for the next 200 years.
Whenever I, or one of my successors, make a trip abroad to Rome, America or the desert,
let the red sparks accompany us.
Now the first Shrove Monday procession can take place. "The Great of 1823" accompanies the "Hero Carnival".
Heinrich Heine notes for posterity that this Fastelovend the common people for the first time
and brought the upper classes together at the masked parade.
Everyone celebrates carnival together "bright" dance and the "Red Sparks" march,
the members of "Big Cologne" and the "Ordering Committee" stand modestly in the background.
Favorite characters from last year's production
Lajos Wenzel, author and director,
sets with the divertissement
"ZICK 200 YEARS! FAST LOVED! ZESAMMESTONN!"
the story and beloved characters from last year's play "Napoleon in Koelle" further on.
The gaming community "Cecilia Cloud Castle" gives to the organized carnival and all anniversary societies
a Divertissements for the 200th birthday and celebrates this very special session the Zillche way:
Based on historical templates, but with a lot of imagination, music and a lot of Cologne heart.
Of course, not everything is historically as accurate as it is supposed to be in a Zillchen.
Even if in 1823 participation in the first Shrove Monday procession was only affordable for the wealthy,
so the "Zillche" - ahead of its time - can dream of a better togetherness,
in which the big traditional clubs and the festival committee work together on a Fastelovend for everyone.
Rushing images, large choirs and imaginative costumes appear in rapid sequence of scenes
and funny situations reflecting the events surrounding the first Shrove Monday procession.
With the best of opera, musical, pop and rock, classic and Cologne tones, the divertissement will be
find an answer to the question that is omnipresent today:
Why do we celebrate carnival and why is it most beautiful the way we like to experience it: on the street,
with music, Pappnas and a lot of jokes, where we don't party alone and only for ourselves?
The answer: Fastelovend it's just nice, met all zesamme!
Advance ticket sales (KölnTicket) begin on Friday, September 5th, 2022
More information at: www.kmgv.de
DIRECTOR AND BOOK: LAJOS WENCESEL
MUSIC AND ARRANGEMENTS: THOMAS GUTHOFF
LYRICS: JOHANNES FROMM, MANFRED SCHREIER
MUSICAL DIRECTION & TEACHING: CHRISTOPHER BRAUCKMANN, THOMAS GUTHOFF,
STEFFEN MÜLLER-GABRIEL, BERNHARD STEINER
STAGE DESIGN: TOM GRASSHOF
COSTUMES: JUDITH PETER
CHOREOGRAPHY: JENS HERMES-CEDILEAU, KATRIN BACHMANN
ORCHESTRA: »BERGISCHE SYMPHONIKER« »WESTWOOD SLICKERS«
CONDUCTOR CHRISTOPHER BRAUCKMANN, STEFFEN MÜLLER-GABRIEL, BERNHARD STEINER
OVERALL MANAGEMENT JÜRGEN NIMPTSCH
The performances
Venue:
Cologne Opera in the Staatshaus, Rheinparkweg 1, 50679 Cologne
Events:
sat
01/21/2023
18:00
premiere
So
01/22/2023
16:00
Tue
01/24/2023
19:30
closed performance
wed
01/25/2023
19:00
closed performance
do
01/26/2023
19:30
Mrs
01/27/2023
19:30
sat
01/28/2023
16:00
So
01/29/2023
11:00 a.m
So
01/29/2023
16:00
Tue
01/31/2023
19:30
closed performance
wed
02/01/2023
19:30
do
02/02/2023
19:30
Mrs
02/03/2023
19:30
sat
04.02.2023
16:00
So
05.02.2023
11:00 a.m
So
02/13/2023
16:00
Tue
07.02.2023
19:30
closed performance
wed
02/08/2023
19:30
do
02/09/2023
19:30
Mrs
02/10/2023
19:30
So
02/12/2023
11:00 a.m
So
02/12/2023
16:00
Tue
02/14/2023
19:30
wed
02/15/2023
19:30
do
02/16/2023
19:30
Mrs
02/17/2023
19:30
So
02/19/2023
16:00
Tue
02/21/2023
19:30
Derniere