Witches and forces of nature gather under the monastery church of St. Ottilien
Created: 01/11/2023 11:46 am
By: Ulrike Osman
Witches, forces of nature and speaking spring flowers: Carl Orff's Christmas play "Ludus de Nato Infante Mirificus" is a somewhat different Christmas story.
Forces of nature in the form of witches are supposed to prevent the arrival of light in the world and try everything so that the "woman" cannot give birth to the child.
© tb
Creepy witches will gather under the St. Ottilien monastery church at the weekend.
Choir and musicians perform Carl Orff's Christmas play.
St. Ottilien
- This coming weekend the Christmas story will come alive again in St. Ottilien - albeit in a very different way to the way it is read in the Gospel of Luke.
In the lower church (the basement of the monastery church) the choir "ottiliAcappella", musicians from the "DOrffwerkstatt Andechs" and the actor Claus Obalski perform the Christmas play "Ludus de Nato Infante Mirificus" by Carl Orff under the direction of Barbara Kling.
A lot will be offered optically, acoustically and atmospherically.
(
By the way: everything from the region is now also available in our regular
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"The whole thing is a mystery play, not the classic Christmas story about the Holy Family," explains choirmaster Kling.
Orff unleashes forces of nature in the form of witches who want to use weather magic to prevent the arrival of light in the world.
"They try everything to dissuade 'the woman' - Maria's name is not mentioned - so that the child is not born," explains Kling.
For Orff, world events are reflected in nature.
He incorporated speaking spring flowers into the work, completed in 1960, and an invisible choir of angels.
Even then, as a progressive user of new technical possibilities, he had his demanding vocals recorded on tape.
It will be the same in St. Ottilien.
Everything else is live - the rhythmic chanting of the witches, the singing of the sleeping flowers performed by a specially assembled children's choir and the dialogue of the shepherds, spoken by folk actor Obalski.
In 2019 the piece was already performed in St. Ottilien.
The fact that people ended up in the lower church was due to the renovation of the actual church room, but it turned out to be a stroke of luck.
"The vault, the columns, the whole ambience - the lower church is the ideal place for the work," enthuses Kling.
Her enthusiasm for the unusual Christmas game goes back a long time.
Many years ago, the elementary school teacher and music teacher, who was already working as an organist and choir director in her home town of Hattenhofen at the age of 13, herself was one of the witches on stage.
At the performance in Orff's adopted home of Dießen am Ammersee (Landsberg district), his widow Lieselotte, who died in 2012, was still in the audience.
Barbara Kling reports that the mystery play with the creepily costumed, conjuring and wildly swearing witches contains pagan elements and that it was “very tolerant” in St. Ottilien.
"One of the fathers told me that he had even performed the work in the school theater many years ago." In addition, evil does not have the upper hand with Orff either.
Not all witchcraft spells can prevent the arrival of light in the world.
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The performance of "Ludus de Nato Infante Mirificus - a Christmas play by Carl Orff" can be seen on January 14th and 15th from 4 p.m. in the lower church of St. Ottilien.
There will be an introduction to the work at 3:15 p.m. each day.
Admission is free, donations are requested.
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