On 30 April 2026, the painter and sculptor Georg Baselitz passed away at the age of 88. Over the past three years, his final major theatre production was created in collaboration with the Salzburg Marionette Theatre. Baselitz’s marionettes and stage designs for Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, developed as a co-production with the Salzburg Festival 2025, marked a groundbreaking milestone in the theatre’s 113-year history. Never before had a prominent contemporary artist created the design for a new production. Baselitz’s undiminished creativity and boundless curiosity for working with string marionettes resulted in archaic, entirely novel marionettes of striking expressiveness, along with stage designs of compelling simplicity. The childlike joy with which Georg Baselitz took part in the creation, rehearsals, and performances will remain a lasting memory for the ensemble. The forthcoming tour in the autumn of this year will, fortunately, present The Soldier’s Tale to a far wider audience and make Baselitz’s innovative artistic vision visible. The Salzburg Marionette Theatre looks back on this formative collaboration with gratitude.
Georg Baselitz with the ensemble of the Salzburg Marionette Theatre and director Matthias Bundschuh