Potsdam Night of Castles

On 18th and the of 19 August 2023, the traditional Potsdamer Schlössernacht (Potsdam Night of Castles) will be a quarter of a century old. With a single exception in 2020, it has taken place annually: 24 times altogether since 1999. Since 2017, the organizer has been the Kultur im Park GmbH on behalf of the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg. The last three Potsdamer Schlössernächte already thematically joined the respective annual motto of Potsdam’s cultural partners. For the year 2023, the Potsdamer Schlössernacht together with the city of Potsdam and its cultural institutions, is seeing Orange! The motto “Holland in Potsdam” runs like an orange thread through the traditional event.

If you are now asking yourself how it can work that such a motto is thematically integrated into Potsdam’s largest annual open-air event and remains true to itself…? We would like to share our thoughts with you here.

Let’s start with a stocktaking: What is typical Dutch, what makes Holland special; how can we incorporate the motto into the title of the Potsdamer Schlössernacht, the communication, the marketing, the external impact, the program, the visitor catering, the overall image of the event? What do we already have, how can we emphasize what is already there, put it in the limelight, pick up on it thematically and expand on it in terms of content? How far can this go, what is good for the event, at what point does it become too much – it is a matter of creating a finely adjusted mixture that lets the Potsdamer Schlössernacht shine “splendidly” and with which it nevertheless remains what it stands for: a varied open-air experience in which the guests immerse themselves in a short vacation from everyday life and experience an evening without worries sans souci.

From the history of Sanssouci, its royal founders and inhabitants, the following could first be established:

Frederick the Great (1712 – 1786), great-grandson of the Great Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg (married to Louise Henriette of Orange-Nassau), had a monument erected to the Dutch kin in Sanssouci Park. In the large round Oranierrondell on the eastern main avenue, eight marble busts in a kind of ancestral gallery refer to the dynastic connection of the Hohenzollerns to the Dutch House of Oranien-Nassau. The Dutch Garden in Sanssouci Park once again demonstrates Frederick II’s desire to combine the beautiful with the useful. His gardener Joachim Ludwig Heydert, who came from the Netherlands, laid out a garden area in front of the picture gallery, hidden behind the hedges, for fruit quarters, as they were often found in the Netherlands.

Paintings by the great masters: the picture gallery, commissioned as early as 1755, gave the king’s art agents reason to acquire top works of 17th-century Flemish and Dutch painting, including outstanding works by Peter Paul Rubens, Anton van Dyck and Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaerts, which can still be admired in the picture gallery today, more than 250 years later. The palace is adorned by the Historic Dutchman’s Mill, which shows park guests the way to the palace night from afar. Next to the Sanssouci Palace, it proudly towers over the entire event. All of this as a collected basis offers various starting points for the integration of the motto.

It was also necessary to assess what Holland itself represents – what does it stand for, what is it said to stand for, which characteristics and peculiarities are transported beyond its borders?

The national color is historically documented and today known worldwide as orange. 60% of the world’s cut flowers are produced in Holland, Dutch flowers even decorate St. Peter’s Square in Rome at Easter. Holland looks back on a centuries-old cheese tradition. Already in the Middle Ages, cheese from Holland was one of the most important exports of the country and was exported to many corners of the then known world. The oldest preserved wooden shoes in Europe were found in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, dating back to the 13th century. The most popularly known form of a wooden shoe is the Dutch klomp. Cycling (Vietsen) is as much a part of Holland as tulips, cheese and clogs. Water flows through the lives of the Dutch. A strong connection forged throughout history. The Dutch love small snacks, such as the thick sweet “mini pancakes” poffertjes with butter and sugar, French fries with mayonnaise “patat”, and deep-fried balls of beef ragu called “bitterballen” or “kroket” depending on their size. Herring, eaten in a bun with onion and gherkin, is also popular. On “Koningsdag,” the people toast with “Oranjebitter,” a liqueur in bright orange. The drink dates to the year 1620 and is inextricably linked to the Dutch royal family.

In summary, at the end of 2022, at the start of advance ticket sales, these key points provided us with the basis for determining the title of the 2023 Potsdamer Schlössernacht: “Prachtig!”. On the one hand, this stands for the description of Sanssouci as an event location; on the other hand, the decision to include the word “beautiful” in the language of the Dutch enables the reference to the annual motto “Holland in Potsdam”.

At the same time, we had Sarah Contini-Frank develop and illustrate the event layout for later communication and marketing based on the identified thematic cues. As a team, we decided on the motif that, in addition to the title “Prachtig! Sanssouci” with the flower girl, the bicycle, the wooden clogs and the Dutchman’s mill in the context of the orange-looking Park Sanssouci, picked up almost all the previously identified features. With this, a next, important step had been taken. In the weeks that followed, the overall program was created. We would like to present to you here with first results and parts of the program, which were selected with attention to the yearly slogan:

The event has a huge stage at its disposal in Park Sanssouci for a diverse program, which will be composed of music, theater, vaudeville, artistry, juggling, readings as well as light shows, mappings and projections. Each of the two evenings, a seven-hour program will take place, with around 49 program points, 135 performances and a combined playing time of 4,500 minutes.

For the “Orange” in the program we have chosen, among others, the Street Theater “Naranja“. The performers are fresh fruity, sweetly juicy, playfully cheeky and seductively sensual oranges – full of energy and playfulness: “Orange de Luxe”. With a diameter of almost 2 meters, they surprise with unexpected sensuality and are simply to bite into! Wherever it is possible to integrate the national color orange in the program, this will happen.

The theme “flowery and colorful” offers a variety of starting points. For example, we are once again very impressed by the support and commitment given by the Sanssouci gardeners. They will welcome the guests of the Potsdamer Schlössernacht in their nursery and provide them with tips and tricks for planting and caring. We ourselves are already excited to see what the gardeners will come up with this year to delight the guests. The Botanical Garden’s greenhouses will also invite guests to take a stroll, and the “Artistocrats” will open their “flower store” on the economists’ path and entertain with lots of charm and comedy. Selected trees in Sanssouci Park will be given a voice, the talking trees will tell guests their stories.

The “great Dutch masters” and their works from the 17th century can be admired in the picture gallery during the Potsdamer Schlössernacht. There, trained guides will be available to answer visitors’ questions and provide background on each piece. Mapping on the facades of the Picture Gallery and the Orangery Palace will be particularly vivid – both buildings turn their innermost selves inside out. Selected paintings housed by them will be projected on a large scale to the outside starting at sunset, and their facades will become giant canvases. These attractions are part of the Night Light Route.

For the two evenings, the Dutch will take over Sanssouci Park as part of the Potsdamer Schlössernacht. On the marketplace at the Meierei, the Dutch Salland Group lets guests experience traditional Dutch craftsmanship: baskets will be woven, clog dances will be performed, and well-known Dutch specialties will be offered for sale. Who should not be missing is the Dutch synonym for agriculture and tradition, Mrs. Antje from Holland, who strolls through the historic park on stilts with her wooden clogs. Remember the advertising slogan that is ingrained in everyone’s ears, “Mrs. Antje brings cheese from Holland?”

The historic Dutch buildings and gardens will be specially staged by light artists on both evenings of Potsdamer Schlössernacht. The castles and the park will be given a veil created from thousands of lights. The area, which usually lies in deep darkness at night due to a lack of light sources and covers several hectares, is made to shine for the two summer evenings and invites visitors to stroll and experience. Most of the light sources are LED-based and designed to be sustainable energy-saving.

And right in the middle of it all, the Dutch Windmill is visible from afar and integrates itself into the overall picture presented to the viewer. However, due to the large number of visitors on the occasion of the Potsdamer Schlössernacht it is not accessible.

The “Vietsen” (bicycle), a favorite way for the Dutch to move around, are not allowed on the park grounds to visitors for safety reasons during the event. However, those arriving to the event by bicycle are welcome, sufficient bicycle racks are available at the entrances. A single Viet is allowed during the event and becomes part of the program. Nothing shapes this world more than diversity. This is exactly what DJ Bensh will express musically, as his individual program can be relied upon. With his E-load bicycle and completely integrated music system including DJ set and solar batteries, he “lays on” for the guests of the Potsdamer Schlössernacht. The Dutch consider dancing in restaurants to be inappropriate, and only consider it to be decent in discotheques. What will they think of dancing in historic parks until dawn?

The highlight of the Potsdamer Schlössernacht also presents itself oranje and flowery colourful. On the vineyard terraces of Sanssouci Palace, high up in the air, four artists in wonderful costumes float and swing back and forth to the beat of the music several times in the evening with a lightness that makes you think they could fly. This has never happened before. In front of the panorama of Sanssouci Palace, the viewer is presented with a wonderful picture created by the award-winning and worldwide touring artists of ‘Cirq’ulation Locale’.

Another highlight of the evening lives from the water that surrounds and flows through Holland like hardly any other country. The place that provides the stage for this is the ‘Maschinenteich’ (machine pond). In a breathtaking production, light and music combine to create an experience for both eyes and ears.

The connection to the readings during the Potsdamer Schlössernacht could be derived solely from the gift of language that the Dutch are said to have. The readings are an indispensable part of the Potsdamer Schlössernacht: Katharina Thalbach reads in her unmistakable way on Friday from the successful novel “Miss Merkel – Mord in der Uckermark” by David Safier – incredibly lovingly written and performed.. Benno Fürmann completes the evening and presents his book “Unter Bäumen”. It is hard to imagine a more fitting location than Park Sanssouci, which is home to many hundred-year-old trees.

On the second evening of the traditional event, a new program celebrates its premiere – “The Laugh Letters”. Most of the letters that reach us in life are of a serious nature: tax assessment notices, telephone bills, reminders. Yet there is such sparkling, funny, hilarious lines. Led through the program by Max Moor, alternating personalities read the funniest “Laugh Letters” of the last thousand years. The letters are hand-picked by the initiators of Lit.COLOGNE.

Thank you for joining us on this pre-journey through the world of artists, musicians and performers. Potsdam and now also the Potsdamer Schlössernacht see Orange!

We invite you to experience how “prachtig!” the Potsdamer Schlössernacht shows itself to you with all its facets and its entire program. Tickets for the 18. and/or 19.08.2023 are available at www.potsdamer-schloessernacht.de.