Museum Night Bern 2025

The SAPA Foundation holds an extensive photographic collection documenting the productions of the Stadttheater Bern (today Bühnen Bern) from 1934 to 2003. Between 2020 and 2023, this was evaluated and reboxed as part of a major project. Selected photographs were digitised. In total, 50 000 negatives and 17 000 paper prints from over 1 000 productions were processed.

Theatre photography directly in the auditorium has been possible since the 1920s, when particularly light-sensitive cameras were produced that allowed images of stage action to be captured despite rather sparse lighting conditions. Thanks to these photographs, for example, changes in aesthetics or the development of conventions of staging in drama, opera and ballet can be traced.

The exhibition presents selected images from the Stadttheater Bern photographic collection. The chronological structure enables comparisons between set designs for a Mozart opera across several decades. Fairy-tale productions for very different generations of children are brought back to life, and evenings of classical pointe work stand alongside those featuring modern movement vocabularies.

Video: Zoë Pitschmann, SAPA Foundation

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Panel discussion with the photographer Michael von Graffenried

Michael von Graffenried, one of the former stage photographers, will, in conversation, offer insights into the particularities of this special form of photography, which is ubiquitous and yet so rarely in its own spotlight.

On this occasion, SAPA will at the same time host the Espace MVG for a long evening.

Behind the scenes

Following the panel discussion, a guided look into the archives will be offered, providing a colourful array of documents such as old programme booklets, artfully designed set models and further gems from earlier times.