Michael Thalheimer

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

Life

Born in Münster, Thalheimer studied from 1985 to 1989 at the Bern School of Acting, 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: 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 , the Staatsschauspiel Dresden, the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, the Deutsches Theater Berlin and the Schaubühne of Berlin.

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.

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

Berliner Theatertreffen

* ''Liliom'' (Ferenc Molnár) at the Thalia Theater Hamburg, 2000
* ''Festen'' (after the film by Thomas Vinterberg) at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden, 2000
* ''Liebelei'' (Arthur Schnitzler) at the Thalia Theater Hamburg, 2001
* ''Lulu'' (Frank Wedekind) at the Thalia Theater Hamburg, 2005
* ''Oresteia'' (Aeschylus) at the Deutschen Theater Berlin, 2007
* ''Die Ratten'' (Gerhart Hauptmann) at the Deutschen Theater Berlin, 2007
* ''Medea'' (Euripides) at the Schauspiel Frankfurt, 2013

Theatre (as director)

Schauspiel Frankfurt:
* 2012: ''Medea'' by Euripides
* 2013: '' Kleiner Mann, was nun?'' by Hans Fallada
* 2014: ''Nora'' by Henrik Ibsen
* 2015: ''Penthesilea'' by Heinrich von Kleist

Burgtheater / Akademietheater:
* 2010: '' Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe'' by Bertolt Brecht
* 2012: ''Elektra'' by Hugo von Hofmannsthal
* 2014: ' by Friedrich Hebbel
* 2014: '' Die Schutzbefohlenen'' by Elfriede Jelinek
* 2017: ''The Persians'' by Aeschylus

Awards

* 2001: im Rahmen des Berliner Theatertreffen for ''Liliom'', Thalia Theater Hamburg (with Olaf Altmann)
* for ''Emilia Galotti'', Deutsches Theater Berlin
* Nestroy Theatre Prize for ''Emilia Galotti'', Deutsches Theater Berlin
* Friedrich-Luft-Preis for '' Faust. Der Tragödie Erster Teil'', Deutsches Theater Berlin
* Nestroy Theatre Prize for ''Elektra'', Burgtheater Wien

References

Further reading

Hans-Dieter Schütt (ed.): ''Michael Thalheimer. Porträt eines Regisseurs''.''Michael Thalheimer: Porträt eines Regisseurs''
on GoogleBooks Verlag Theater der Zeit, Berlin 2017, .

External links

*


Website of the Goethe-Institut
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thalheimer, Michael
German theatre directors
1965 births
Living people
People from Münster