Andrea Breth

Andrea Breth (born 31 October 1952) is a stage director. From 1999 to 2019 she was in-house director at the Burgtheater in Vienna and also directed for the Salzburg Festival.

Biography

Born in Rieden am Forggensee, Germany, Andrea Breth grew up in Darmstadt. Breth studied German and English language and literature in the University of Heidelberg from 1971 to 1973. Her first directorial engagements took her to Bremen, Wiesbaden, Hamburg and Berlin (including 1981 Lessing's ''Emilia Galotti'' at the Freie Volksbühne Berlin), the Zürich Schauspielakademie and the Theater am Neumarkt in Zürich. From 1983 to 1985, she was director at Theater Freiburg. Her production of Lorca's ''The House of Bernarda Alba'' won her the first of a number of invitations to the Berlin Theatertreffen in 1985. In the same year, ''Theater heute'' voted her Director of the Year. From 1986 to 1989 Breth worked at the Schauspielhaus Bochum. Green's ''South''and Gorki's ''The Last Ones'' saw Andrea Breth win her second invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen. In 1990 and 1992 she directed Kleist's ''Der zerbrochene Krug'' at the Burgtheater and O'Caseys ''The End of the Beginning'' at the Akademietheater.

From 1992 to 1997, she was artistic director at the Schaubühne Berlin, where her productions of Vampilov's ''Last Summer in Chulimsk'', Ibsen's ''Hedda Gabler'' and Chekhov's ''Uncle Vanya'' gained her yet another invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen. From 1999 to 2006 she was resident director at the Burgtheater, staging Horváth's ''Der jüngste Tag'', Kleist's ''Das Käthchen von Heilbronn'', Friedrich Schiller's ''Maria Stuart'' and ''Don Carlos'', Albert Ostermaier's ''Letzter Aufruf'' and ''Nach den Klippen'', Tennessee Williams' ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'', Anton Chekhov's ''The Cherry Orchard'' and Lessing's ''Minna von Barnhelm''. Her directorial work at the Burgtheater from 2009 onwards included ''Motortown'' by Simon Stephens, ''Quay West'' by Bernard-Marie Koltès, ''Zwischenfälle'' (with scenes from Courteline, Cami and Charms), Kleist's ''Prinz Friedrich von Homburg'' in a co-production with the Salzburg Festival, Shakespeare's ''Hamlet'', ''This Story of You'' by John Hopkins, Harold Pinter's ''The Birthday Party'' (in co-operation with the Salzburg Festival) and finally, ''Long Day's Journey into Night'' by Eugene O'Neill. She was once again invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen with Lessing's ''Emilia Galotti'' and Schiller's ''Don Carlos''.

Breth also directed Schnitzler's ''Das weite Land'' and ''Crime and Punishment'' by Fyodor Dostoyevsky at the Salzburg Festival. In 2009, she directed Albert Ostermaier's ''Blaue Spiegel'' at the Berliner Ensemble and Kleist's ''Der zerbrochne Krug'' at the Ruhrtriennale. In 2011, she directed Isaak Babel's ''Marija'' at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, in 2013 Ibsen's ''John Gabriel Borkman'' at the Schauspiel Frankfurt and in 2014, Pinter's ''The Caretaker'' at the Residenztheater in Munich. Her work for opera from 2000 onwards includes Gluck's ''Orfeo ed Euridice'' at the Leipzig Opera, Smetana's ''The Bartered Bride'' and ''Jakob Lenz'' by Wolfgang Rihm at the Stuttgart State Opera, Bizet's ''Carmen'' at the Styriarte Festival in Graz, Tchaikovsky's ''Eugene Onegin'' at the Salzburg Festival, Janáček's ''Katya Kabanova'' and ''La Traviata'' by Giuseppe Verdi at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, ''Lulu'' and ''Wozzeck'' by Alban Berg, ''Medea'' by Luigi Cherubini at the Schiller Theater of the Berlin State Opera and Giuseppe Verdi's ''Macbeth'' at De Nationale Opera in Amsterdam.

In the 2018/19 season Breth has been directing ''Die Ratten'' by Gerhart Hauptmann at the Akademietheater and ''Jakob Lenz'' by Wolfgang Rihm at the festival of Aix.

She was Professor of Directing at the University of Performing Arts Ernst Busch in Berlin.

Honours

Breth won the German Critics’ Prize in 1986, the Fritz Kortner Prize in 1987, the Nestroy Theatre Prize for Best Director in 2003 for Lessing's ''Emilia Galotti'', and the Berlin Theater Prize in 2006. She won then again the Nestroy Theatre Prize for ''Zwischenfälle'' in 2011 and 2016 for John Hopkin's ''This Story of Yours''. She also won the Schiller Prize of the City of Marbach in 2015 and Der Faust award in 2015 in the Musical Theatre Direction category for ''Jakob Lenz''.

She is a member of the Akademie der Darstellenden Künste in Frankfurt am Main, the Academy of Arts, Berlin, as well as the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste and the Order Pour le Mérite. She is also the holder of the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art 1st Class and the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Nestroy award for her life work. She won the Joana Maria Gorvin Prize 2020.

See also

* ''Andrea Breth'' by Klaus Dermutz, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1995

References

External links

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Breth, Andrea
1952 births
Living people
German theatre directors
German opera directors
Female opera directors
Heidelberg University alumni
Members of the Academy of Arts, Berlin
Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
German expatriates in Austria