Don Giovanni König Kandaules Die Zauberflöte Turandot Die Liebe der Danae Roméo et Juliette La Donna del Lago Helmut Lachenmann Jedermann Daponte in Santa Fe Das weite Land Young Directors Joachim Schlömer Concerts 2002 The Unfinished

GOOD TIMES FOR THEATRE AHEAD
Jürgen Flimm intends to enrich the Salzburg Festival with young European theatre.
A new Jedermann is planned.

The new director of drama at the Salzburg Festival, Jürgen Flimm, is not afraid of taking the bull by the horns: he intends to renovate the performance of Hofmannsthal’s Jedermann on the Cathedral Square. Ten years ago Peter Stein also showed great determination and tried to find an author – one of them was Peter Handke – who could write something suitable and new. But it was a fruitless task. He did not even succeed in finding a new stage director. Consequently the old staging by Gernot Friedel, who added more and more details to the play, lasted another ten years.

Christian Stückl is to stage Jedermann

Not long after Jürgen Flimm had been appointed director of drama, he came up with the name of a potential stage director for Jedermann: Christian Stückl. He is from Oberammergau and was engaged at the Kammerspiele in Munich when Dieter Dorn was artistic director. Stückl staged Werner Schwab’s Volksvernichtung oder Meine Leber ist sinnlos and was highly acclaimed for his spectacular interpretation of the Oberammergau Passion Play. It was the broad range of this director’s work that made Flimm interested in engaging him to stage Jedermann. And Stückl agreed.
The concept is well elaborated and Jürgen Flimm allays fears already expressed that there will be no banquet scene or that there might be other radical changes. Nobody needs to be afraid that Jedermann will be unrecognisable; Hofmannsthal’s text will be adhered to. Flimm has said that seen superficially Hofmannsthal’s text can get on the nerves but this is not the case when it is studied more intensively. Three roles have already been cast: Peter Simonischek takes the title role, Veronica Ferres will be the Paramour and Sunnyi Melles Faith. The sets and costumes are designed by Marlene Poley.
The Felsenreitschule was available for Peter Stein – is Flimm interested in this venue? It is reserved for opera until 2004, 2005 but it can be considered for the seasons afterwards. During his previous activity in Salzburg Flimm always liked the Landestheater very much. He is planning to use this venue for plays in the Austrian tradition.

Andrea Breth is to stage Arthur Schnitzler’s Das weite Land there with sets by Erich Wonder. Das weite Land will be on the Festival drama programme for two seasons. Claus Peymann is going to stage the world premiere of a play in the Landestheater about Mozart’s librettist, Da Ponte in Santa Fé by Peter Turrini. For the last few days in August Flimm is planning to present the piece that is awarded the prize for the best German-language play at the Mülheimer Theatre Festival.

Young Directors Project in the Stadtkino

The Stadtkino is to remain a venue for Festival drama productions. Flimm intends to organise a small competition there entitled “Young Directors Project” for young European stage directors. About five or six directors are coming to Salzburg with their ensembles and with a production. Their works will be presented here throughout August and the best will be awarded a prize. The names of three participants are already known: Falk Richter, who comes from Christoph Marthaler’s Zurich corner; Frédéric Fisbach will direct Jean Genet’s Les Paravents and another guest will be the Lithuanian director Oskara Korsonovas.
As if that were not already enough, Flimm is planning to organise a master class in cooperation with the Summer Academy of the Mozarteum. Young European directors, dramaturges and stage designers, a total of 30 students, will be taught by artists engaged at the Festival and they will also have the chance to become acquainted with the work of the Festival. Flimm says that this plan originated from one of his own personal experiences. As a young man, with hardly any money, he went to Avignon to find out about the festival. His ardent wish to become more involved in the artistic events there remained unfulfilled.

Dance theatre will be presented on the Perner Island

Flimm sees the venue on the Perner Island in Hallein as a complement and counter-balance and intends to give it a new emphasis. In future dance theatre will be performed there. Each season one artist and his work will be presented. In the first year it is Joachim Schlömer who is on the one hand a stage director and on the other a choreographer. He is to present a new work, The Day I go to the Body and his latest work from Basle, Senza Fine.
Hans Kresnik, from Carinthia has been invited for 2003 and Sasha Waltz for 2004. According to Flimm, what happens after then is still open. First of all it is important to see how successful the first three seasons are and to what extent the public is interested in this kind of theatre. The series initiated by Ivan Nagel, Guest Poet will be continued, next season with Robert Gernhardt. Jürgen Flimm, who was director of the theatre in Cologne for six years and then headed the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg for 15 years, does not intend to stage anything himself at the Salzburg Festival, at least not for the time being.
Flimm stresses that he was very pleased to accept the position in Salzburg and thinks the city is wonderful. Although he knows that one should groan under the burden of work, he does not feel any urge to do so.

Werner Thuswaldner

Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Jedermann

with

Peter Simonischek as Everyman
Veronica Ferres as the Paramour
Christa Berndl as Everyman’s mother
Sunnyi Melles as Faith

Cathedral Square
in inclement weather in the Grosses Festspielhaus

New production: 28 July 2002
3, 6, 8, 12, 14, 23, 25, 27, 28 August 2002
Performances begin at 5.30 p.m.

All performances are sold out