Theater: Tops & Flops
Gold for the Josefstadt, Up and down at the castle
Successful 2024: Before intriguers ruined his life, Herbert Föttinger created the production of the year. Stefan Bachmann took over the castle with fortitude. "Jedermann" has recovered.
TOP I. "Living and Dying in Vienna" by Thomas Arzt, Theater in der Josefstadt: If you prefer to see your own play instead of dramaturge's chatter and video garbage, entrust it to the most attractive world premiere theater in the Republic: After Peter Turrini and Daniel Kehlmann, the young Austrian Thomas Arzt has now also accepted the invitation of artistic director Herbert Föttinger.
After endless postponements due to the coronavirus pandemic, the brilliant didactic play about the February battles in Vienna in 1934 was met with rapturous applause. The house was pushed to the limits of its possibilities, director Föttinger and the stage design collective "Die Schichtarbeiter" let the dominant culture of perverted concepts of homeland rage in a dark Egger-Lienz aesthetic.
Katharina Klar and Johanna Mahaffy shone at the center of a luxury ensemble. A short time later, a coup led by anonymous denunciators against the director, who will now hand over the house to Marie Rötzer in early summer 2026 after a successful 20 years, failed.
TOP II. "Liliom" by Franz Molnár, Burgtheater Vienna: In his Burg debut, German director Philipp Stölzl ventured back to the timeless virtues of theater: an evening full of poetry, warmth of heart and drastic wit soars into a great, perfectly crafted tragedy of humanity.
Stefanie Reinsperger shines above it all, performing an incredible transformation in the title role and literally playing her heart out. The evening is exemplary of the largely successful beginning of the Stefan Bachmann era, which is dedicated to great texts and fascinating actors.
Getting tickets for the brilliant solos by Niki Ofczarek (Bernhard's "Holzfällen") and Nils Strunk (Zweig's "Schachnovelle") requires some strategic skills. On both sides of the ramp, people are now enjoying the positive mood that has enabled the friendly Swiss Bachmann to stage 15 premieres in his first 101 days in office.
TOP III "Jedermann" by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Salzburg Festival: It wouldn't have taken much for the most productive cash cow in the history of the Festival to have died of intestinal obstruction: The emergency production intended for quick consumption, which director Michael Sturminger improvised on the cathedral square in 2017 after an internal dispute at the festival, disappeared under the stage floor for seven years in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.
It became increasingly banal, and when audience discontent grew threateningly in the summer of 2023, the blameless Michael Maertens also had to leave alongside Sturminger.
Intendant Hinterhäuser knew what to do: the beguilingly unprovincial production by Canadian Robert Carsen concentrated on the acclaimed title character Philipp Hochmair, who achieved unforgettable moments of loneliness and mortal fear.
Failed 2024: Kusej's tough, grumpy farewell drove the audience away, Salzburg's new head of drama failed immediately. And the castle took a massive downward turn.
FLOP I. "Orpheus Descends" by Tennessee Williams, Burgtheater Vienna: With Tennessee Williams' tough southern opera, reluctantly departing director Martin Kušej gave it to us one last time: his last production at the venue allowed us to share in the fate of a beautiful, wild, intoxicatingly singing young hero who descends into a reactionary backwater and is brought there to his death.
The overlong, darkly pompous mishap did not make it into the fall despite good actors, because the audience refused.
The directorship, which ended after a record-breaking five years, never made it to an era: unlike his State Opera colleague Bogdan Roščić, Kušej didn't care about his house during the coronavirus pandemic and, on the occasion of the Teichtmeister catastrophe, he once again acted as both crisis and manager.
On the plus side, there was the rediscovery of the writers Anna Gmeyner and Maria Lazar, who had been expelled by the Nazis, and some successful acting engagements: Bibiana Beglau and Norman Hacker came from Munich, and Felix Kammerer, who had grown into a film star in the meantime, was hired out of drama school.
FLOP II: "Oresteia I - IV", Salzburg Festival: For whatever reason, the festival committees fired their head of drama Marina Davydova after just one year: her debut program made it difficult even for sympathizers to feel sorry for her. The confused, formless and conceptless conglomeration of polyglot theater, dance and performance reached its nadir through the misuse of Greek antiquity.
Director Nicolas Stemann fired up the post-dramatic mixing machine to the derision of the trade press: Explanatory texts with a Wikipedia and children's radio feel, a devastating talk show parody, raucous vocal interludes and an audience vote on the guilt of the matricide Orest all clumped together to create an overlong stupor. PS: Intendant Hinterhäuser came up with the successful "Jedermann" himself.
FLOP III. Hamlet" by William Shakespeare, Burgtheater: If this opening evening had represented the intentions of the new Burgtheater director, there would have been a lot to worry about. Karin Henkel's production resembles a parody of the almost mummified post-dramatic theater of the turn of the millennium: The title role is split into five, the play chopped up into an unpalatable salad of Shakespeare fragments, theater-theoretical platitudes and German racket pedagogy.
But thank goodness it was intended differently. The biggest crowd-pleaser in theater history with Iffland Ring winner Jens Harzer: that could have been something, but Harzer probably left after the first reading because of the filleting of the Danish prince. Now everything's right again: the audience is grumbling and the invitation to the bizarre Berlin Theatertreffen seems certain.
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
Kommentare
Willkommen in unserer Community! Eingehende Beiträge werden geprüft und anschließend veröffentlicht. Bitte achten Sie auf Einhaltung unserer Netiquette und AGB. Für ausführliche Diskussionen steht Ihnen ebenso das krone.at-Forum zur Verfügung. Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.
User-Beiträge geben nicht notwendigerweise die Meinung des Betreibers/der Redaktion bzw. von Krone Multimedia (KMM) wieder. In diesem Sinne distanziert sich die Redaktion/der Betreiber von den Inhalten in diesem Diskussionsforum. KMM behält sich insbesondere vor, gegen geltendes Recht verstoßende, den guten Sitten oder der Netiquette widersprechende bzw. dem Ansehen von KMM zuwiderlaufende Beiträge zu löschen, diesbezüglichen Schadenersatz gegenüber dem betreffenden User geltend zu machen, die Nutzer-Daten zu Zwecken der Rechtsverfolgung zu verwenden und strafrechtlich relevante Beiträge zur Anzeige zu bringen (siehe auch AGB). Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.