When the sun sets over Worms Cathedral, the air becomes heavy with anticipation. The 2026 Nibelungen Festival once again invites audiences to immerse themselves in the fiery world of the ancient saga—yet in a way never seen before. This year's focus is on Kriemhild, the Burgundian princess whose fate oscillates between love, loss, and political intrigue. After Siegfried's death, she crosses boundaries that no one before her dared to cross: Kriemhild moves to the camp of the Huns and rises to become the most powerful woman on her continent. The stage becomes a battlefield of emotions, where power, justice, and passion go up in flames.
In "Die Hunnenkönigin" (The Hun Queen), Oliver Lansley tells a story of unbridled strength and radical determination. Kriemhild's path is a balancing act between political calculation, painful betrayal, and great, perhaps forbidden love. Every decision has consequences that shake the world around her—and yet it is precisely this woman whose determination changes the fate of entire empires.
The Nibelungen Festival was able to secure the London theater company LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES for the production. Known for their spectacular blend of drama, music, circus, magic, and puppetry, they bring the character of Kriemhild to life in a way that fuses classical theater and visual spectacle into an intoxicating whole. Their theater is wild, surprising, physical, and yet deeply poetic—a perfect match for Kriemhild's inner turmoil and thirst for power.
Alice Merton © Elias Köhler
Musically, the production is experiencing a premiere: Alice Merton, internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter, has composed new songs especially for "Die Hunnenkönigin" and will perform them live on stage. Together with Alexander Wolfe, British musician, singer, and composer of LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES, she creates a soundscape that elevates the plot to another level. Music, acting, and text merge into an organic whole; each song, each melody becomes an impulse that makes Kriemhild's ambitions, her anger, and her longing for justice palpable.
The Nibelungen Festival 2026 is more than just an evening at the theater—it is an immersion into a universe of power, betrayal, love, and revenge, told with the courage to experiment with staging that draws the audience into the heart of the action. With a combination of great acting, visual spectacle, and live, specially composed music, the audience experiences Kriemhild's journey from grieving widow to undisputed Hun queen as an epic roller coaster ride of emotions.
Worms will once again become a center for epic stories in which power, love, and music collide. The 2026 Nibelungen Festival promises a summer full of drama, passion, and cultural excitement—an event that will be remembered long after the final curtain has fallen.
July 17 to August 2, 2026
cultural program
At the same time, the Worms Theater is opening up an intimate, contrasting perspective as part of its cultural program: on August 1, 2026, Mavie Hörbiger and Verena Altenberger will present a musical journey entitled "Den Göttern in die Seele blicken" (Looking into the souls of the gods). Together with Clara Frühstück on two pianos, they explore literary and musical facets of female self-determination, from Ingeborg Bachmann to Virginie Despentes to fragments from Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung." An evening full of intensity, sensuality, and power that bridges the gap between mythological epic and contemporary expression, between stage combat and inner reflection.
August 1, 2026, Wormser Theater
www.nibelungenfestspiele.de
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