Coffee for the king

Narrator: Franziska Janetzko

The king’s musicians are worried: their master loves to drink a certainæΩ kind of coffee in his salon with good music, but the last beans have been used up. No coffee from all over the Orient can compete with the one he once received as a gift from the Sultan’s palace. But as long as the king does not have his coffee, no music can be made at court. So the musicians themselves go to Istanbul to get coffee for the king from the seraglio. But the Golden Horn is bewitched: no cup of coffee is available far and wide, neither in the coffee houses of the city nor in the magnificent Sultan’s Palace. All doors seem closed to them and they feel very lonely in this strange country with its strange customs. However, a dervish explains to the traveller that it is the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting, and that Muslims are not allowed to eat or drink anything during the day. In the evening, however, the houses, courtyards and palaces are filled with all the scents of the Orient and the dervish invites the visitor to celebrate the big sugar festival with them and his friends…
A musical fairytale for people from 0-99 about coffee, true hospitality and about Istanbul – a city where people of all cultures and religions have lived and celebrated peacefully together for centuries and which shows that seemingly foreign things are only a little bit different from what you know from home. With old music from the morning – and the occident, each not only for itself, but played together for big and small ears of today.
Music by Lully, Couperin, Vivaldi, Tanburi Mustafa Çavus, Dede Efendi, Sultan Selim III.

Today it is more important than ever to introduce children to classical music. Since our society is becoming more and more colourful, there is not only one classical tradition. But everyone listens to their own music – some in the Philharmonie, others in the Turkish Cultural Centre. The Pera Ensemble is the first to bring two seemingly irreconcilable musical traditions together on stage in a form suitable for children. First, the Prélude mistrustfully eyes the Pesrev, and the dance from the Seraglio also prefers to remain with its peers rather than join the Gavotte – this is a mirror to the world in which we live. The program “Coffee for the King”, woven into a fairytale story, wants to encourage people to overcome barriers in their heads and to venture new paths together, because the longer they stay at each other’s door, the stranger they become.

Cast by arrangement

Smallest cast 2 musicians & narrator.