Music theatre for children by Thierry Tidrow based on the story by Astrid Lindgren | Ages 4 and up
Advance ticket sales start: June 09, 2026
Libretto by Manfred Weiß
Because Mom and Dad are always working, Bertil is often home alone. It's terribly boring and hard to bear – until one day, Bertil hears an unfamiliar tapping. Is it a ghost, Bertil wonders. Or is it raindrops? But then he hears a voice and immediately makes the acquaintance of Nils Karlsson Däumling, known as Nisse. Nisse is, in fact, only as tall as a thumb. He only moved in a few days ago – into Bertil's cellar, or more precisely: into the apartment of a mouse family currently away on vacation.
Nisse invites Bertil to visit him in the mouse apartment. And so a wonderful friendship begins, even if the two have a problem to solve first: their size difference!
But fortunately, Nisse knows what to do, and soon the two are inseparable...
Manfred Weiß and Thierry Tidrow originally retold Astrid Lindgren's fairytale story of the unlikely friends Bertil and Nisse for the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in their children's opera. Following performances in Düsseldorf, Karlsruhe, and at the Semperoper Dresden, we are bringing this piece about the wonderful power of a child's imagination to our stages – and, if you like, to kindergartens and primary schools in Upper Lusatia and Lower Silesia.
This is a continuous multi-day event
