Staatsoperette

Clerical indignation, bomb threats, parliamentary debate. Franz Novotny's audacious First Republic satire STAATSOPERETTE caused many a public and private mind to overheat in 1977. There was talk of blasphemy, the ‘downfall of the West’ and ‘mockery of the homeland’. In fact, ORF Austria had never experienced a more liberal, or rather, more free-spirited interpretation of national history. Dollfuß as a singing wind-up character or Ignaz Seipel as a sycophant in front of the Duce are just two of the ingredients with which Novotny and composer Otto M. Zykan spice up their carnivalesque musical theatre. The opening programme is also shrill and cheeky, a short film performed on the occasion of a festive advertising company presentation - which the clients had probably imagined differently.