| Director | Christoph Marthaler |
| Scenography and Costume Design | Anna Fibrok |
| Music | Rosemary Hardy, Markushinterheuser, Christoph Homberger, Cristoph Kellre (arrangement) And Christoph Marthaler |
| Light | Herbert Zibulska |
| Script | Stefan Karp And Arved Schulze |
| Cast | Rosemary Hardy (soprano). Althea Garrido, Bettine Staki, Daniel Chat, Markus Hinterheuser. (piano), Christoph Homberger (tenor), Neli Jaeggi, Christoph Keller (piano), Stefan Kurt, Thomas Stache. Graham F. Valentine, Markus Wolf |
Christoph Marthaler, the native Swiss began his career as a musician. After a good music education and simultaneously following a course at the Theatre School of Lecoq in Paris, Marthaler worked from the mid 1970s at the largest German-speaking theatres of Europe. A masterpiece in his creative career was the performance «Killing a European...» on the stage of the Berlin theatre Volksbuehne (season 1992-93). Marthaler has directed at the German Drama Theatre in Hamburg, at the Volksbuehne Berlin, at the Frankfurt opera etc. Special success has fallen to the performances «Zero Hour, or the Art of Serving» (1995, Hamburg) and «Kasimir and Karolina» (1996, Hamburg). Among other productions: ‘Experts’, ‘Three Sisters', ‘Katia Kabanova’, ‘Pelleas and Melisande’ etc. He is the winner of the prestigious prize «From Europe for the Theatre».
For his Schubertiade Marthaler needed some musical instruments and 12 actors, four of them musicians. And everyone sings. They sing Schubert. Some works are shortened, some are expanded. It is surprising how Marthaler can create such a perfect, sensual and conformable oratorio of sounds, words and movements with his glorified twelve actors. In this lies the it secret of Marthaler: when he masters a work (and he did master the FairMiller's Wife), the effect is always tremendous.
In this play there are many incredibly comical moments, but uncontrollable laughter is followed by the desire to sob and cry. This is art and nothing but art. It is theatre and nothing but theatre. But maybe this is what touches us very deeply. As some smells can trigger certain memoirs of the past, the magic theatre of Marthaler wakens in us a long forgotten time. In this lies the essence of Marthaler: sounds and acrobatics, large and small choruses, a travelling piano, conversations with scarecrows,even naked people; but in all this, strange as it may sound, there is a measure of deep human truthfulness which is rarely found in recent theatre. In last scene when the twelve all sing Bach, the theatre-goers of Zurich have tears in their eyes. And then come an explosion of an applause. In a word: a triumph!
In this play there are many incredibly comical moments, but uncontrollable laughter is followed by the desire to sob and cry. This is art and nothing but art. It is theatre and nothing but theatre. But maybe this is what touches us very deeply. As some smells can trigger certain memoirs of the past, the magic theatre of Marthaler wakens in us a long forgotten time. In this lies the essence of Marthaler: sounds and acrobatics, large and small choruses, a travelling piano, conversations with scarecrows,even naked people; but in all this, strange as it may sound, there is a measure of deep human truthfulness which is rarely found in recent theatre. In last scene when the twelve all sing Bach, the theatre-goers of Zurich have tears in their eyes. And then come an explosion of an applause. In a word: a triumph!
Stutlgarter Zeitung
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