Heinrich von Kleist • Prinz Friedrich von Homburg
A Play
New production · Coproduction with the Burgtheater Wien
In German
Print program (PDF)
Andrea Breth, Stage Director
Martin Zehetgruber, Set Design
Moidele Bickel, Costume Design
Wolfgang Wiens, Dramaturgy
Bert Wrede, Music
Friedrich Rom, Lighting Design
Alexander Nefzger, Sound Design
Peter Simonischek, Friedrich Wilhelm, Kurfürst von Brandenburg
Andrea Clausen, Die Kurfürstin
Anne Ratte-Polle, Prinzessin Natalie von Oranien
Udo Samel, Feldmarschall Dörfling
August Diehl, Prinz Friedrich Arthur von Homburg
Hans-Michael Rehberg, Obrist Kottwitz
Roland Koch, Graf Hohenzollern
Elisabeth Orth, Bork
and other members of the Burgtheater ensemble.
On November 21, 1811 – 200 years ago – the poet and genius Heinrich von Kleist, having failed most grandiosely, chose to commit suicide together with his companion Henriette Vogel. Violence is ever-present in his work as well. “To Kleist, the world was constant war … and even love is an opulent battlefield to him,” as one writer noted. – Now, for the Festival summer of 2012, Andrea Breth and her equally ingenious designer-partner Martin Zehetgruber follow Kleist into his abyss, producing his play Prinz Friedrich von Homburg on stage at Salzburg’s Landestheater. The former Jedermann actor Peter Simonischek returns to Salzburg as the Elector Frederic. The role of the Prince, who ignores a command of the Elector and is sentenced to death as a result, will be performed by August Diehl, making his debut at the Salzburg Festival.
“Kleist’s Elector condemns the Prince of Homburg to death for insubordination, although it was his daring that overwhelmed the Swedes. … In the Prince and the Elector, the human dualism of reason and drive, sense and sensuality face each other. When the Prince submits to the Elector’s death sentence, the reason of law seems to triumph; but nothing the piece has mobilized against it so far is forgotten either – on the contrary, the dreamy utopian, the Prince, leaves a stronger impression. The play bears his name in its title for a reason; he is the hero. If Kleist was attempting to write a play to please the royal court, he could not have succeeded less. On the other hand, it turned out a masterwork on the torn state of mankind, proving its modernism in exactly the aspects that displeased the court,” the dramaturge of the Salzburg production, Wolfgang Wiens, explains.