Grüber, Hölderlin, Marthaler: Into the Open

Like the theatre guest performance Die Sorglosschlafenden, die Frischaufgeblühten on 16 and 17 May, the colloquium is dedicated to the director Klaus Michael Grüber (1941-2008). The talks with Academy members and guests from France and Germany as well as films and film clips of Grüber's productions attempt an approach to Grüber’s work and ask about his vital impact. It also examines a “communism of the spirit” (loosely based on Hölderlin) in Europe that became concrete in art.

Klaus Michael Grüber (1941–2008) started out as a director with Giorgio Strehler in Milan, and from 1972, he left his mark on the Schaubühne over the course of 20 years alongside Peter Stein. From 1975, he also worked and lived in France. With painters such as Eduardo Arroyo, Gilles Aillaud and Antonio Recalcati, he found new places for theatre: In 1975 he staged Faust in Paris in the chapel of the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière and in 1977 he staged Winterreise im Olympiastadion after Hölderlin in Berlin. Grüber succeeded in extracting images from the spatial dimensions that penetrated deep into the “cold heart” of the city.

Christoph Marthaler’s Die Sorglosschlafenden, die Frischaufgeblühten on 16 and 17 May is a quiet and grandiose homage to Grüber and Hölderlin. Of exquisite musicality with a wonderfully homogeneous ensemble, it refers to the love of art as a motif of existence.

Colloquium and theatre guest performance funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.