Peter Stein - German theater director: biography, personal life, creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Peter Stein is a director known for his classical direction in theatrical art, embellished with notes of bold avant-garde and his own interpretations. Under his strict guidance, dozens of complex magnificent performances were created, staged in various large cities around the world, including Russia.

What is the biography of Peter Stein - this talented creative person who found boundless happiness and joy in active and fruitful work? What are his most interesting projects and why do they deserve the attention of modern viewers? Let's find out.

Happy childhood years

Despite the fact that Peter Stein was born in 1937 in the capital of Germany, he remembers the war years poorly. The hard time left almost no trace in his memories. Although the prosperity of fascism caused anxiety in his little soul, Peter Stein still considers his childhood and youth happy and joyful.

The future director's parents had a positive influence on him. Mother involved inyouth by sculpting, instilled a love for art, and his father, who works as an engineer not only at home, but also abroad (even in Russia), introduced his son to the technologies of Russian scientists and encouraged him to show respect for this country.

Getting an education

In imitation of his father, young Peter began to get involved in technology, but at the university he studied philosophy and German art. He did not receive a specialized education in order to start showing himself in the theatrical field, but immediately after graduating from the university he began working in the theater, helping in the production of various plays and performances. He was then twenty-seven years old.

First solo work

They turned out to be the productions of “Deceit and Love” (according to Schiller) and “Torquato Tasso” (according to Goethe), which were presented to the public of Bremen in 1967.

These works are very remarkable and interesting, because even then they reflected Stein's direction as a director. He sought not only to accurately convey the creation of the classic, but also to erase the boundaries between the past tense (when the work was written) and the present (when the performance was staged).

As many critics and censors have pointed out, it was in "Cunning and Love" that Stein managed to prove that it is necessary to learn from the mistakes of the past.

Revealing the social and political problems of his time, the aspiring director tried to show that all this is the result of inaccurate and meager information about the aesthetic and moral events of the past.

Position of the head of the theater

Suchprogressive views caused discontent among some directors and actors of Bremen, with whom Peter Stein had a lot of controversy and debate. Therefore, when he was offered the position of artistic director of one of the theaters in West Berlin, the young director answered with joyful consent. Together with him, four more actors from the Bremen troupe left.

In the "Schaubün" (that was the name of the theater in which Stein began to serve), he staged innovative, hugely successful performances. First of all, these are “Peer Gynt” (Ibsen), “Mother” (Brecht), “Optimistic Tragedy” (Vishnevsky) and many others.

It is noteworthy that Peter Stein treated his subordinates in a special way. In matters of productions, repertoire, technical solutions, and so on, he took into account the opinion and considerations of the entire creative team, as well as, which is a rarity, the attendants. Such a policy was successful, which nevertheless did not save the director from ill-wishers and dissenters.

Orientation of creativity

Peter Stein's performances enjoyed tremendous success due to his innovative experiments in the avant-garde style. Preferring the classics, ancient tragedies, Shakespeare and Chekhov, he presented well-known productions as something new, unforgettable, enchanting, from which the audience was breathless and breathtaking.

Many people still remember Peter Stein's Oresteia, written by Aeschylus and staged by the director in 1979. The audience was impressed by the stagethe murder of Clytemnestra, when the heroine was lying on the stage on the surgical table, there were tubes and hoses near her, blood flowed through them, and an ancient text was read behind the scenes. One can only imagine how bold and cutting-edge such productions were considered at the time.

Despite such outrageousness, in his performances Peter Stein masterfully conveys the idea of the whole work and the inner world of each character. Working on the smallest details, delving into the intricacies of musical accompaniment and transmission of light and shade, he tries to put into the production all the depth and realism that he understands himself.

The director works equally talented with both classical works and contemporary authors.

Stein and Russian creativity

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is one of the favorite authors of the German director. For his work, he staged many times on various stages, both domestic and foreign, the works of this writer. For example, at different times he showed the audience “Three Sisters” and “The Cherry Orchard” (in Schaubün), “The Seagull” (in Riga) and so on.

Peter Stein believes that the images of Chekhov's characters are still relevant in our modern world. In his work, he is not going to trivialize or vulgarize them, no! The director is trying to literally convey Chekhov's traditions, his way of thinking and principles to the current audience. And then people will see that the classics are still relevant, still modern and interesting. To do this, it is only necessary to stage the performance correctly and naturally present it to the public.

In his work as a director, Stein relies on the principles of another great Russian man - Stanislavsky, whose style he imitates not only in staging works, but also in working with a theater group.

Performances in Russia

Since 1989, Peter Stein has become an international director. He is actively working in different countries, including Russia.

The first production staged in Chekhov's homeland was the play "Three Sisters". And although the actors were Germans and spoke German, they conveyed the feelings of their characters so vividly and realistically that it seemed to the audience that they heard their native speech. The lead actresses are said to have tears in their eyes as they deliver their stage lines.

The next performance was staged two years later, in 1991. It was also the dramaturgy of Anton Pavlovich, presented in the play "The Cherry Orchard", in which Peter Stein tried to convey to the audience an important idea: the center of the story is not a person, but his conflict with himself and nature.

In 1994, the German director staged another play in Moscow - "Oresteia", and this, despite the tragic incidents in the Russian Federation, which could cool down the desire of a foreign citizen to be in the capital during this period. Nevertheless, Stein set to work and presented an eight-hour performance to an enthusiastic audience with the participation of such talented eminent actors as E. Vasilyeva, L. Chursina, T. Dogileva, E. Mironov, I. Kostolevsky.

Followed by no less bright and talented performances, suchlike "Hamlet" with E. Mironov in the title role, "Aida", "The Condemnation of Faust", "Boris Godunov". Peter Stein, in the last of the listed productions, in an original and profound way portrayed both the Russian tsar himself and the complexity and tragedy of the events of that time. According to the director himself, his main goal was to show not a love story, but the history of the Russian people, the political and social world of old Russia.

For his great contribution to the Russian theatrical art, the German director was awarded the honorary Order of Friendship.

Other areas of creativity

Since the 1980s, Peter Stein has tried his hand not only in dramaturgy, but also in staging opera performances. For example, according to numerous reviews, he staged the best operatic interpretation of "Ring of the Nibelungen" (according to Wagner). Later he worked as a director at the Welsh Opera and Ballet Theatre.

“Faust” in the original

In 2000, especially for the international exhibition EXPO, Peter Stein staged the full version of Goethe's Faust. The performance ran on the stage of Hannover for more than twenty hours. About forty actors were involved in it.

The audience was impressed by the literalness and accuracy of the performance, in accordance with the original. Later, similar shows were held in Austrian Vienna and German Berlin.

Peter Stein's personal life

The German director is a man who does not like to share the details of his intimate life. Despite his venerable age, he is still slim, neat, gallant.

The director's wife Maddalena Cripa, an Italian actress, lives near Rome in a rich and beautiful villa. The couple, who have been married since 1999, spend all their free time together.

Now Peter Stein is eighty years old. But he is not going to retire or otherwise reduce his creative activity. The director is still active, full of strength and energy, enthusiasm and new ideas. Peter Stein travels freely around the world, communicates with different people, puts on his talented projects and, as before, is not afraid to experiment.

Soon he will please us again with new, incredibly interesting and exciting productions and performances. Perhaps even on the stage of our homeland. Looking forward to it!