Edouard Funck, round glasses, thin moustaches and hair in battle, is one of those who pull the strings "two meters above the stage".

"It's like playing a musical instrument: you don't think about the strings during the performance" and you know your score, says the 34-year-old artist.

Here the movements of the figurines are ultra-precise, the emotions are palpable.

The secret weapon? A small cross to manipulate the puppets, which fits in one hand and allows "the characters to kiss or hug", which is "not always possible with a different technique".

Two puppeteers at work during a performance at the Salzburg Puppet Theatre, Austria, February 14, 2023 © JOE KLAMAR / AFP

Learning to handle it is not taught in any school: you have to train here and several years are required to achieve perfect mastery. Knowing that some complex characters can have dozens of strings, requiring up to five specialists.

Renewed interest

The puppeteers are also the ones who build the puppets: they devote hours daily to these wooden beings, hundreds of whom populate the workshops, before engaging in the performance in the baroque room.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Little Prince, the Magic Flute: each puppet is carved, painted and dressed by the artists themselves to animate a vast repertoire drawing on tales as well as musicals.

A puppet operated by a puppeteer during a rehearsal at the Salzburg Puppet Theatre, Austria, February 14, 2023 © JOE KLAMAR / AFP

"It's not an unusual job," says Edouard Funck, a costume designer by training and a proud member of the team.

The Theatre, which supports 19 people, has seen its attendance increase in recent years. People are "getting a little tired of the virtual world" and are again showing interest in "what is touched, listened to and seen," he notes.

Ilse Laubbichler, a 79-year-old spectator loyal to the theater from a young age, is enthusiastic about "this truly superb art" that she now introduces to her grandchildren.

"I like the figurines, the grace of the movements and that we can represent everything, whether it's a ballerina, a dragon or the traditional Kasperl", a kind of German Guignol, she explains.

Puppets at the Puppet Theatre in Salzburg, Austria, February 14, 2023 © JOE KLAMAR / AFP

Since 1961, the tradition of puppetry, practiced in many countries for thousands of years, even has its world festival in Charleville-Mézières in the French Ardennes.

But Austria is hardly worried about competition. "Competing with a century-old institution seems difficult to me," smiles Mr. Funck.

Especially since the theater of Salzburg, city of Mozart obliges, is the only one in the world dedicated to the demanding representation of real operas.

© 2023 AFP