Conductors are fascinating people: Gifted with the highest degree of musical sensitivity, they rule over huge orchestras as godlike autocrats. They need to be equipped with both delicacy and leadership qualities, and at times they are tyrannical, self-aggrandizing despots who can set a hundred people into motion with a twitch of their finger or a stirring of their soul. Such a man was Karl Böhm, one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century. Nearly 87 years lie between his birth and his funeral, and these years were shaped by a deep discrepancy: On the one hand, Böhm was a great artist; on the other, he associated with National Socialism to further his career.

After Hitler advocated for him, Böhm was appointed Fritz Busch’s successor at Dresden’s Semperoper when the NS-regime had coerced Busch to resign and emigrate. In 1943, at the height of the Second World War, Böhm became director of the Vienna State Opera. In 1945, the allied occupational authorities removed him from the office of director because of his proximity to the Nazi-regime, and banned him from performing. Once the occupation ended, he resumed this office and held it until 1956.

In Böhm, the gifted puppeteer and puppet-maker Nikolaus Habjan once again looks at the dark chapter of European history that has been the subject of other works, such as F. Zawrel – erbbiologisch und sozial minderwertig. Böhm was written by Viennese author Paulus Hochgatterer, who custom-made these characters for Nikolaus Habjan and his puppets.