"Feuernacht" translates to "Fire Night" in English.

FELIX MITTERER: NIGHT OF FIRE

Felix Mitterer returns to Telfs. Herbert Pixner composes - and plays live every evening with his band. However, the real star of the evening is Tyrolean history: with this spectacular world premiere, the Volksschauspiele 2026 brings the continuation of Mitterer’s "The Sold Homeland" to the stage for the first time, telling stories and fates of people in South Tyrol between the late 1930s and the 1960s.

"The Night of Fire" takes place in the early 1960s, at the height of the so-called "Bumser" period, when South Tyrol was in a state of permanent emergency. During the "Night of Fire" from June 11 to 12, 1961, numerous power pylons were blown up to draw international attention to the plight of the German-speaking South Tyroleans. Even today, 65 years after the "Night of Fire," there are highly emotional discussions about the sense or nonsense of these actions.

Is there a historically unjust border? Does it become less unjust simply because time passes? Should we finally stop talking about it? The history of Tyrol contains, aside from this regional trauma, the very explosive material that seems familiar from the global history of humanity. These are also patterns and dynamics of our present. Did the prudent forces of that time gradually achieve a far-reaching autonomy status despite or because of the violent rebellion - a prerequisite for transforming a catastrophe into one of the wealthiest regions in the entire EU?

Viewed through a magnifying glass, "The Night of Fire" examines the people caught up in the conflicts of those tumultuous times and their stories. The now largely demolished South Tyrolean settlement becomes a breathtaking open-air stage for the incomparable sound of Felix Mitterer and Herbert Pixner, for grand opera and small stories amidst the grand narrative, directed by Thomas Gassner, in a specially created stage adaptation by Peter Lorenz - an explosive, captivating evening of theater about courage and doubt, responsibility and consequence, flight and homeland, freedom and identity.