Michael Thalheimer

Michael Thalheimer (born 28 May 1965) is a German theatre director.

Michael Thalheimer (2015)

Life

Born in Münster, Thalheimer studied from 1985 to 1989 at the Bern School of Acting,[1] now integrated into the University of the Arts Bern. As an actor, he was engaged at many German-speaking theatres, including in Bern, Mainz, Bremerhaven and Chemnitz.

In 1997, he presented his first production at the Theater Chemnitz:[1] Fernando Arrabal's The Architect and the Emperor of Assyria. Since his work at the theatre in Chemnitz, he has worked with the set designer Olaf Altmann as a permanent collaborator. Many productions followed at renowned theatres such as the Theater Freiburg, the Theater Basel, the Schauspiel Leipzig, the Staatsschauspiel Dresden, the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, the Deutsches Theater Berlin and the Schaubühne of Berlin.[1][2]

In 2005, Thalheimer made his debut as an opera director with Leoš Janáček's Káťa Kabanová at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, followed in December of the same year by an interpretation of Verdi's Rigoletto.

At Hamburg's Thalia Theater in particular, Thalheimer acquired an excellent reputation as a theatre director with productions of Schiller's Kabale und Liebe, Schnitzler's Liebelei and other classics. He is able to reduce even the most difficult material to its basic content and transport it emotionally and mentally. As a perfectionist, Thalheimer attaches great importance to the facial expressions and gestures of his actors, who sometimes fill minutes of wordless phases, which are then replaced by a flood of text recited in paragraphs and performed in staccato.

After many successful years at Hamburg's Thalia Theater, Thalheimer shifted his work more and more to the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. After he had achieved the greatest success there in years with his two productions of Goethe's Faust I and Faust II, which were acclaimed by critics and audiences alike, he was head director from 2005 to 2008.[3][4]

His production of Dea Loher's play Innocence became the subject of a protest action in spring 2012.[3][5]

Berliner Theatertreffen

Theatre (as director)

Schauspiel Frankfurt:

Burgtheater / Akademietheater:

Awards

References
  1. "Michael Thalheimer". berliner-ensemble.de. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
  2. Michael Thalheimer on Operabase
  3. "Michael Thalheimer". Deutsches Theater Berlin. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
  4. Michael Thalheimer on the website of the Théâtre national de la Colline
  5. Der Freitag, retrieved 28 October 2020
  6. Ronald Pohl: „Die Perser“: Theaterschlachthaus im antiken CNN-Büro. In derstandard.at, 21 May 2017, retrieved 28 October 2020.

Further reading

Hans-Dieter Schütt (ed.): Michael Thalheimer. Porträt eines Regisseurs.[1] Verlag Theater der Zeit, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-95749-095-7.

  1. Michael Thalheimer: Porträt eines Regisseurs on GoogleBooks
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