Austria's mini theatre makes magic - 7th April 2023

It takes years to become an expert at the Salzburg Marionette Theatre. The puppeteers need to learn how to move their puppets with great skill.

Perhaps that's why this famous theatre is a UNESCO site. It's seen as having an important cultural position in the world.

Puppeteer Edouard Funck comes from Paris. As a child, he fell in love with puppets and in 2011, he got the chance to start working here. But being a puppeteer isn't just about working the puppets.

Edouard Funck: "I arrive in the morning, I work in the costume workshop from 9 am to 2 pm, I leave in the afternoon and I come back in the evening to play, for the show. That's really a typical day. Each puppeteer creates and is an integral part of the fabrication."

100 years ago, the theatre was started by Anton Aicher. He created a special 'crossbar' which is joined to the puppet by 11 strings. It helps to move the puppets so that they appear real.

Edouard Funck: "All these little cross-braces allow us to get them to interact closely, so they can kiss each other, hug each other, hit each other, whatever we want, and it's this diversity of movements contained in this little cross that is protected."

Some of the puppets are more complicated. They can require five people to make them work.

The puppets' performance stays in people's minds. A puppet show on this Salzburg stage was Ilse Laubbichler's first theatre experience. She went there as a child and the memory's stayed with her. Now, she wants her grandchildren to experience the magic.

Ilse Laubbichler: "I love the characters, their movements, it's absolute art. You can portray everything from a ballet dancer, to a dog, to a dragon, anything you want, not to mention Kasperl. It's been with me since I was a child, it was my first theatre experience."