Sissy Engl

My whole life, everything has always happened by accident.

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Sissy Engl is among the formative artists of Munich’s cultural life in the second half of the 20th century. As a singer, actress, and choreographer, she worked with Holiday on Ice, on theater stages, in film, and on television. Together with her long-time partner Peter Mühlen, she founded the “Mandolin Motions Einstein Show Academy” in 1980, which for decades remained a fixture in Munich’s cultural scene.

The interview, conducted in the summer of 2012 on the premises of the Show Academy, offers insights into an exceptionally multifaceted life: artistic successes and provocations, work on roles ranging from Sartre to Arrabal, encounters with well-known figures from Munich’s scene, and personal experiences that shaped her.

At the same time, Sissy Engl speaks about her time with Peter Mühlen, whose last public statements are closely connected to this conversation. The interview thus opens a window onto an artist who looks back on her life with openness, humor, and remarkable clarity.

Sample reading

The following excerpt comes from the full interview that was published in the publication.

Sissy Engl: Wecker is a great musician! And he’s a very intelligent person—he really has something!

HAMCHA: There’s a story with Konstantin Wecker. I found it quite interesting when you mentioned it last time.

Sissy Engl: Yes. – Yes, the Konstantin…

HAMCHA: I think this brings us back to cabaret…

Sissy Engl: Yes, yes. – The Konstantin Wecker story was simply that Günter Knoll said to me, right at the beginning, he had a really great singer-songwriter who was on the rise—you’ll be hearing more about him. He’d put out a record, “Weckerleuchten,” and he’s doing the music for us. That’s great! Come to me, you have to listen to the music. I listened to it; it didn’t knock me off my chair, but I didn’t find it bad either. I wasn’t really into singer-songwriters and that sort of thing… I didn’t mind; I was basically indifferent. And Konstantin Wecker was commissioned, from the outset, to do this music for the many pieces we were doing. And we rehearsed for weeks and months and refitted the whole place and did other things. Then we rented the hurdy-gurdy, and finally the date came: now we’re making the recordings with Konstantin Wecker! – Konstantin Wecker stood us up; we paid for the hurdy-gurdy for nothing. We had to pay for it. And Günter Knoll got pretty angry. Konstantin Wecker’s excuse was that he’d injured his finger or something, he was on the road, so he couldn’t come then. – We had to postpone the premiere. A week later it was arranged that Konstantin Wecker would come one hundred percent and record the music with us then. Then Konstantin Wecker came, really with his band. Then we went in and he was friendly and nice… And then he says—Peter Mühlen was the director—“So Peter, what are we supposed to do now?”