)  |
| © Arno Declair |
From 1990 to 1993 he was a director at the Niedersächsisches Staatstheater Hannover under Eberhard Witt. His breakthrough came in 1992 with his production of “Emilia Galotti". In 1993 he moved with Witt to the Bayrisches Staatsschauspiel in Munich, were he remained in-house director until 1999. He also produced at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg and at Vienna’s Burgtheater. In 1998 he was voted Director of the Year for his premiere production of Botho Strauß’s “The Kiss of Forgetting” in Zurich.
Since 2000 he has been the manager of the Bochum Schauspielhaus, which he has been leading with great success. First opera production in Zurich in 2003. In 2005 he will move to be manager of the Zurich Schauspielhaus, where he took over from Christoph Marthaler.
Related links
Portrait: Matthias Hartmann
No German director yearns so much for cinema as Matthias Hartmann. Not that he is desperately trying to get into the film business, but the aesthetics of his productions bear testimony to a great love for the means of the cinematographer. Widescreen, rich colours, suspense and opulence, beauty, dynamism and great emotions already referred to this relationship even when he did not intensively work with technical media on the stage. Since he took over the management in Bochum as the successor of Leander Haußmann in the year 2000, his practical and often also experimental use of video on the stage emphasises the traditional proximity of this genre, right up to the embrace.Hartmann, who in spite of his tender age has worked his way up from assistant director, the provinces, medium-sized and major theatres right up to being a star director and theatre manager, has also expanded aesthetically with every new experience. In the early years of his directorial success he was still considered to be a young friend of old methods, who made classic material into box office hits with great acting theatricals, today he is greatly concerned with the right interpretation of contemporary writers.
But Hartmann has remained true to the narrative and beautifying duty of the theatre. If we look at one of his most successful productions of the early 1990s, the image-packed and elaborate modernisation of Kleist’s “Katherine of Heilbronn”, which ran with tremendous success for seven years at the otherwise more experimental Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, then here we can see the same inviting gestures as in his new video theatre. More recent productions – e.g. of Falk Richter’s “Electronic City” or the adaptation of Christian Kracht’s novel “1979” – may work with camera operatives live on the stage, various screens and digital mixing technologies, but the position of the technology subordinate to the narrative is never in doubt. The commenting or wilful use of video, as is predominant elsewhere in German theatre, is alien to Hartmann.
This love of playful, but understanding narration has brought Hartmann great success with the public and culture politician, but always distanced the review sections of the press. The warm feeling of welcome that his direction and his management conveys to the audience has led the Bochum Schaspielhaus, which was on its knees, back to success. Thanks to this brilliant coup, even in the middle of his period of management he was then offered two of the most important German-language theatres (faced with a choice between the Zurich and Hamburg Schauspielhaus, he decided on Switzerland).
On the other hand, critics complained that the harmonious striving in his art was not in step with the times and contrasted Hartmann with the main directors of the last 15 years, Frank Castorf and Christoph Marthaler. Hartmann consistently contradicts their art of obtaining an intellectual stance from fragments, disruptions and deliberately making excessive demands of the audience with modern faithfulness to the text.
But in spite of all the shaping of contemporary theatre by the technology of recent years, the audience’s desire for psychologically accurate work with actors has not been extinguished. And Matthias Hartmann works in this field with an exceptional talent for human proximity in large images. Sure of the effects and powerful in style, greatly varying when dealing with theatrical means and inventive in awaking actors’ transformation abilities, Hartmann has created many a great moment in theatre.
The 1999 production of Botho Strauß’s “The Kiss of Forgetting” with Anne Tismer and Otto Sander invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen or the brilliant coup of casting the late-night comedian Harald Schmidt as the slave Lucky in “Waiting for Godot”, bear testimony to his rare talent of reconciling entertainment and thoughtfulness. In moments such as this Hartmann wonderfully combines his two great loves: in refilming ancient theatre traditions.
Productions - A selection
- Elfriede Jelinek "Schatten. Eurydike sagt" (i.e. "Shadows. Eurydike says")
2013, Burgtheater (Akademietheater), Vienna - Anton Chekhov "Uncle Vanya"
2012, Burgtheater (Akademietheater), Vienna - Leo Tolstoi "War And Peace"
Version by Amely Joana Haag/Burgtheater based on the translation by Werner Bergengruen
2011, Burgtheater (Kasino), Vienna - Botho Strauß "Das blinde Geschehen" (i.e. "The Blind Events")
2011, Burgthater, Vienna - William Shakespeare "What You Will"
2010, Burgtheater, Vienna - Jean Baptiste Racine "Phedre"
2010, Salzburg Festival, Coproduction with Burgtheater, Vienna - Jon Fosse "Ich bin der Wind" (i.e. "I Am the Wind")
2009, Schauspielhaus Zürich - Justine del Corte "Sex"
2008, Schauspielhaus Zürich - Thomas Bernhard "Immanuel Kant"
2008, Schauspielhaus Zürich - Mark Ravenhill "pool (no water)"
2007, Schauspielhaus Zürich - David Harrower "Blackbird"
2006, Schauspielhaus Zürich - Heinrich von Kleist "Amphitryon"
2006, Schauspielhaus Zürich - William Shakespeare „Othello“
2006, Schauspielhaus, Zurich - Friedrich Schiller nach Louis Benoit Picard „Der Parasit“ (i.e., "The Parasite")
2005, Schauspielhaus, Zurich - Botho Strauß „Nach der Liebe beginnt ihre Geschichte“ (i.e., "After Love Begins Its Story")
2005, Schauspielhaus, Zurich - Molière „The Misanthrope“
2005, Schauspielhaus, Bochum - Jon Fosse „Death Variations“
2005, Schauspielhaus, Bochum - Anton Tschechow "Iwanow"
2004, Schauspielhaus Bochum - Carl Zuckmayer "The Captain of Köpenick"
2004, Schauspielhaus Bochum - Moritz Rinke "Die Optimisten" (i.e. "The optimists")
2003, Schauspielhaus Bochum - Falk Richter “Electronic City”
2003, Schauspielhaus Bochum - Christian Kracht “1979”
2003, Schauspielhaus Bochum - Samuel Beckett “Waiting for Godot”
2002, Schauspielhaus Bochum - Botho Strauß “The Fool and His Wife This Evening in Pancomedia”
2001, Schauspielhaus Bochum - Botho Strauß “The Kiss of Forgetting”
1998, Schauspielhaus Zurich, invitation to Berliner Theatertreffen - Peter Turrini “Love in Madagascar”
1998, Burgtheater Vienna - Henrik Ibsen “Peer Gynt”
1997, Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg - William Shakespeare "Richard III”
1996, Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel Munich - Friedrich Schiller “The Robbers”
1995, Burgtheater Vienna - Heinrich von Kleist “Katherine of Heilbronn”
1994, Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg - William Shakespeare “The Taming of the Shrew”
1993, Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel Munich - Frank Wedekind “Lulu”
1992, Niedersächsisches Staatstheater Hannnover - Gotthold Ephraim Lessing “Emilia Galotti”
1992, Niedersächsisches Staatstheater Hannover, invitation to Berliner Theatertreffen - Gotthold Ephraim Lessing “Minna von Barnhelm”
1990, Niedersächsisches Staatstheater Hannover
