Burgtheater plans Jelinek and Nestroy productions

Plays by Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Elfriede Jelinek, Ferdinand Raimund and Johann Nepomuk Nestroy will be performed at the Burgtheater (www.burgtheater.at) next season.

Burgtheater director Matthias Hartmann announced that the theatre would stage a drama play based on Jelinek’s text “Schatten (Eurydike sagt)” from autumn. Jelinek’s “Winterreise” is currently performed to wide acclaim at the Burgtheater’s sister theatre, the Akademietheater Vienna. It was named Play of the Year in a critics’ poll last year 2011. Die Presse praised “Winterreise” as a “brilliant production”. Barbara Petritsch, Dorothee Hartinger and others star in the production directed by Stefan Bachmann.

Johannes Krisch (“Stallerhof”) will play a leading role in Raimund’s “Der Alpenkönig und der Menschenfeind” at the Burgtheater in the 2012/2013 season. Regina Fritsch and Cornelius Obonya – who currently performs in “Sleuth” (Revanche), a psychological thriller written for the stage by Anthony Shaffer at the Stadttheater Walfischgasse (www.stadttheater.org) – are also lined up for “Der Alpenkönig und der Menschenfeind”. The news means that Obonya is at the ready to return to the Burgtheater after having focused on television and film productions in the past years. The versatile actor said in a recent interview he hoped for the chance to continue to perform in series, movies but also stage productions.

Nestroy’s “Der Talismann” and plays by Thomas Vinterberg and Heinrich von Kleist and will also be on at the Burgtheater and the Akademietheater from autumn 2012, according to Hartmann. The Burgtheater head also revealed that the current season might draw 425,000 people altogether. This would be a new all-time record for the tradition-rich theatre which is widely considered as one of the finest stages in Central Europe.

Vienna’s museums are booming these days as well thanks to a string of extraordinary exhibitions. A special exhibit about impressionists is currently on at the Albertina (www.albertina.at). Over 200 spectacular drawings and paintings by geniuses like Paul Gauguin, Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne and Claude Monet are part of the wonderful exhibition which shows how the artists influenced each other.

The Albertina hosts a special Gustav Klimt exhibition as well at the moment. Around 170 drafts and drawings by the celebrated artist are on display at the museum which is situated near the State Opera and Hotel Sacher. Klimt died in 1918. His birthday occurred 150 years ago. Klimt might be best known for masterpieces such as “Der Kuss” (The Kiss) and “Adele Bloch-Bauer I”. But while experts are aware of only 200 Klimt paintings, the Fin de Siecle legend is understood to having created more than 4,000 drawings. The current Albertina exhibit covers a wide range of drawings by Klimt – from pictorial allegories to figure studies.