Mario and the Magician - Premiere / Introduction: 7 pm

A play based on the novella by Thomas Mann

Italy in the 1920s: a family is on holiday amid rising nationalism and discrimination. For the sake of the children they stay - and eventually attend a performance by the conjurer Cipolla. He turns out to be a brilliant stage hypnotist who strips his audience of their free will. The family watches with fascination and dread as the show takes an increasingly sinister turn, until the charged atmosphere erupts in a fatal horror.

Mann's 1929 novella is a psychological portrait of a society that surrenders responsibility, reason and morality and allows itself to be seduced by fascism.

Recommended age: 13 and above