The First Multimedia Event for the Masses in Graubünden: The Calven Celebration

Do you have to live in Graubünden to truly understand its people and their ways? Must one be in the very place where a historical event occurred to create a Festspiel—a celebratory play—that engages with it? For example, the famous 1499 Battle of Calven—fought between troops from Graubünden and the Swiss Confederacy on one side, and those of the Swabian League on the other?

George Luck may have grown up on the Luck family estate near what is now the Waldhaus Psychiatric Clinic in Chur, while Michael Bühler had roots in the Safien valley. However, both spent many years away from their native soil—well, actually in Bern, to be precise. It was in the Swiss capital that they simultaneously worked for the newspaper Der Bund and co-wrote the script for the Calven celebratory play, which premiered in Chur in 1899 before an audience of 1,500. The music was composed by Otto Barblan.

What the celebration commemorating the Battle of Calven—and the accompanying play—entailed is documented on Porta Cultura, including photographs of what was likely the first multimedia event for the masses in Graubünden.