Lani in Weimar

Leipzig and Weimar mark part one of my Goethe pilgimage. (Wetzlar is soon to follow.) My friend Sarah (an American in Cambridge last year like me, and an American in Berlin at the moment) met me in Leipzig and was kind enough to indulge my author-themed itinerary. We spent a relaxed couple of days visiting Goethe-themed sights, with the occasional other author or composer thrown in.

Goethe in Leipzig

Leipzig has a positive mania for claiming famous figures as its own. And because Leipzig is a university town, it has a long list of Germans its can lay at least partial claim to: Leibniz, Lessing, Nietzsche, Angela Merkel, Schumann, Wagner, Mendelssohn, Bach, and, of course, Goethe. Despite the fact that Goethe only spent three years at university there and actually failed his exams, he’s well-commemorated. There’s a large, very shiny statue of him in a central square. But the best Goethe-related site in town is Auerbachs Keller. It’s the second-oldest restaurant in the city, dating back to the early 1400s. It was Goethe’s favorite wine bar during his student days, when it was already decorated with paintings from the story of Faust. He set a scene in his Faust I in the bar. Mephisto brings Faust here, impresses students with some magic involving an endless supply of wine, and rides off (with Faust) on a wine cask. Auerbachs Keller embraces its celebrity, with statues outside depicting scenes from Goethe’s play, Faust-themed paintings on all the walls, and a horribly cheesy wine cask with Mephisto and Faust dummies riding it.

Students bewitched by Mephisto (a statue by the entrance of Auerbachs Keller)

Mephisto and Faust, outside Auerbachs Keller

Mephisto and Faust ride a wine cask out of Auerbachs Keller

Goethe in Leipzig

Queens exchanging insults: Maria Stuart at the Kammerspiele

If we don’t count Woyzeck at the Kammerspiele and at the Volkstheater (because one was only loosely based on the original script), Maria Stuart marks my first time seeing two different productions of the same play in German. In fact, Schiller’s Maria Stuart was one of the first plays I ever saw in German, just over a year ago in Vienna. That production—starkly minimalistic, sort of modern, and dramatically lit—was fabulous. So perhaps it was inevitable that I would be disappointed the second time around.

It’s not that Andreas Kriegenburg’s new production is bad. It’s my favorite show I’ve seen at the Kammerspiele so far. (I haven’t been lucky there, on the whole.) The abstract set serves as both a prison and a royal court, depending on the lighting. That lighting is noticeably terrible in the first scene (yes, it’s a dark prison, but I still want to be able to see the actors’ faces!), but improves thereafter. The historical costumes are gorgeous, with Elisabeth in a stunning yellow gown and red wig that contrast with Maria’s bald head and dirty shift. (She gets her own pretty red gown and blond wig after intermission, though.) The men are hard to tell apart in their Puritanical blacks—with the hilarious exception of the French ambassador, who sports a tight-fitting, lime-green, velvet suit.

Annette Paulmann (Elisabeth), Walter Hess (Paulet), Edmund Telgenkämper (Davison), Wolfgang Pregler (Shrewsbury), Vincent zur Linden (Count Aubespine, the French ambassador), Oliver Mallison (Leicester), Jochen Noch (Burleigh). Photo: Judith Buss

This William Tell has no heroes

I rushed home from Vienna this past weekend to catch Guillaume Tell at the Bayerische Staatsoper. It combines two of my favorite things: Schiller plays and bel canto opera! This was definitely a Regietheater take on the text and score, but it worked very well. My full review is here.

Intrigue and Love is intriguing, but not so lovely

Kabale und Liebe (“Intrigue and Love”) is one of my favorite plays. I know I said that about Cyrano and Die Räuber too, but it’s true. Doomed love, evil cunning, loads of guilt—Schiller’s “bourgeois tragedy” has it all. Reading it gives me the unpleasant sensation of being repeatedly stabbed in the heart, but sometimes that’s what you want from theatre. It’s certainly what I hoped for when I headed to the Residenztheater. But their production, while full of interesting ideas, left me emotionally cold.

Luise (Andrea Wenzl) and Ferdinand (Johannes Zirner) play as Luise’s father (Götz Schulte) looks on. Photo: Matthias Horn

Moors vs. Zombies

Just when I thought German theatre couldn’t get any stranger, the Volkstheater put zombies in Die Räuber.

All I wanted was an evening of cathartic heartbreak. I was prepared for the Volkstheater’s peculiarities.

Messenger ravens in a modern staging? Pretty funny, actually.

A huge nude photo of Karl Moor? OK, I guess.

Definitely-not-in-the-script homosexual undertones? That’s cool.

An Amalia with the world’s strangest fashion sense who likes to “wuther” to Kate Bush music? I can live with that.

Only two robbers in the eponymous band? Awkward, but the actors could sell it, so props to them.

Copious amounts of stage blood when it’s totally unwarranted? I love blood!

An Elvis impersonator in the woods? I’m not a fan, but whatever.

Taxidermied animals and a creepy baby doll on stage? That actually sort of fits the script.