Störtebeker 2019: Oath of the Righteous

The middle of June and a trip to Rügen can only mean one thing: it’s time for a new production of the Störtebeker Festspiele.

Having returned to the beginning of the story last year, we fast forward to the year 1393 and the siege of Stockholm.  Margarete, Queen of Denmark and Norway, has occupied most of Sweden and is hoping to add a third crown to her collection.  However Stockholm refusing to surrender, with the pirates provided a supply route back to Mecklenburg.  Similar to the division of Berlin many hundred years later, the siege has torn families appart, in some case with members of the same family forced to fight each other.

The bastillion of Stockholm
The bastillion of Stockholm
[Read more…]

Störtebeker 2017: In the Shadow of Death

The end of the cycle at the Störtbeker Festspiele on Rügen can only mean one thing: Klaus Störtebeker is going to lose his head at the end of the evening.  But before we things get that far, there is a story to finish telling.

At the end of the 2016 play, Klaus Störtebeker and his men had moved to the North Sea and it is several years later, now in 1401, that we pick up the story.  Klaus (Bastian Semm) and Goedecke (Andreas Euler) are about to attack one of the stores in Hamburg, where Fronica (Karin Hartmann) is selling fish at the market.  They are successful, ultimately burning down the store after taking the contents back to their ships, but it only makes the elders in Hamburg more determined than ever to capture the pirates.

Klaus Störtebeker (Bastian Semm) coming out of the fogKlaus Störtebeker (Bastian Semm) coming out of the fog

Enter Simon von Ütrecht (Nicolas König) [Read more…]

Störtebeker’s Falconer

There is a moment during the Störtebeker Festspiele that always amazes the audience, when “Laran” the eagle flows low over their heads and lands on Störtebeker’s arm.  They gasp and those directly under the flight path can feel the rush of air has he silently glides over them.

Stiwi, the bird playing Laran, and his trainer Volker Walter, have been taking part in the play for the past 20 years and travel each year in May from their home in Bavaria to Rügen for the summer season, along with a host of other birds that he trains with his wife.

Last year I was lucky enough to be invited to visit them and see their birds of prey first hand.

The Adlershow at the Störtebeker Theatre in Ralswiek [Read more…]

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