World premiere in Linz

Franzobel: Vanity, gossip and love affairs

Devouring love: Cecilia Pérez as love-hungry Cittadella and Markus Ransmayr as anxious Fifone(Bild: ALFRED MORINA)

What a bizarre comedy Upper Austrian playwright Franzobel has created based on Carlo Goldoni's "Trilogy of the Summer Retreat" in a work commissioned by the Linz Landestheater! His very special version had its world premiere at the Schauspielhaus on Saturday.

There is only one thing that really holds the world together - and that is gossip. Father Cozzevongole, decked out in a wig and sunglasses, muses on this at the beginning. And he himself cleverly pushes this "world cement" forward, because he loves to observe the love affairs of the nobility and chat about them in the appropriate place.