As in previous years, the Wiesbadener Burgfestspiele e.V. aims to provide a platform for talented young artists in 2026 to showcase their work to an interested audience. For this reason, the "Thespis" ensemble, under the baton of its young conductor Noah Damm, will be performing Paul Hindemith’s short opera *Hin und zurück* at the Burgfestspiele. This work will be framed, complemented, and annotated by several songs by Hanns Eisler as “backyard scenes.” In this way, the Wiesbaden Burgfestspiele also allows the young ensemble to experiment with its “pocket opera” format.

The theatrical evening feels like a journey through time “back and forth”: into the past and, at the same time, into our present. Hindemith and Eisler paint musical portraits of an era whose questions still concern us today. The audience becomes not merely spectators, but witnesses—confronted with the human fates of war, reflected in a family, told through the eyes of a child.
A musical drama about loss, responsibility, the inheritance of trauma—and the quiet, indestructible hope for humanity.