Georg Baselitz, the 87-year-old German artist recognized for large-scale work that grapple with the trauma of post-war Germany, has turned his consideration to the world of puppetry. For the 2025 Salzburg Competition, Baselitz designed marionettes and units for a efficiency of Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Story), Russian composer Igor Stravinsky’s wartime theatrical piece. The manufacturing, carried out by the Salzburg Marionette Theater, will run from July twenty ninth to August third. Stemming from Baselitz’s longstanding curiosity in Twentieth-century music, the collaboration—his first marionette undertaking—began in 2023. The puppets’ heads are made out of crumpled metallic foil, every painted a single shade, whereas their our bodies are manufactured from cardboard. The ensuing characters are aligned with the artist’s stark, expressive physique of labor.
This experimental manufacturing of The Soldier’s Story marks a stylistic shift from the realism that characterizes the Salzburg Marionette Theatre’s well-known, long-running productions of The Magic Flute and The Sound of Music. The piece was composed in 1918 by Stravinsky and author Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, who conceived it for a small touring troupe. The story attracts from a Russian folktale by which a soldier deserts the military and trades his violin to the satan for a magic e book. Baselitz advised the New York Occasions he was drawn to the piece as a result of it was “very humorous” and “extremely well timed.”
The play, directed by Matthias Bundschuh, contains a dwell chamber ensemble. Following its run in Salzburg, the manufacturing might be filmed in partnership with Japanese broadcaster NHK and can tour Europe in fall 2026.
Baselitz, whose profession spans six a long time, is represented by Thaddeaus Ropac, White Dice, and Gagosian, and his work is within the collections of establishments together with the Centre Pompidou, Museum of Fashionable Artwork, and the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork.
