Thomas Mann

Der Tod in Venedig
Nach der gleichnamigen Erzählung
Dramatisiert von Michael Wallner
3 D, 5 H, St
UA: 04.02.2006 · Saarländisches Staatstheater, Saarbrücken, Alte Feuerwache · Directed by: Michael Wallner
"The longing for life and the longing for death arise from the same state of exhaustion with the routines of daily life which have suddenly become empty. They occur in moments where the identity or the truthfulness of one's life is questioned and express themselves as opposing movements to the extreme: either one lets oneself fall, or one sets off for the unknown.

The hero in Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice seems to be anything but a man of extremes. Gustav von Aschenbach, the fifty-year-old writer, has lived a life of self-discipline and has achieved considerable literary fame. His lifelong credo is "perseverance" and he seeks to overcome all aspects of his vulnerable nature. But Aschenbach, the solitary widower, has completely neglected the sensual side of life, especially its erotic drives. The course of his stay in Venice, during which he falls in love with a Polish boy, is tragic. Without the possibility of inner repentance, Aschenbach experiences the complete breakdown of his 'world based on self-control, measure, and knowledge.’ "(Announcement Staatstheater Stuttgart)

"A great risk, one would like to say, to transfer Thomas Mann's novella to the stage without an independent narrator, but Michael Wallner has totally succeeded in doing just that.... Worth seeing!" (Welt kompakt)

"[Wallner] distilled the ironic vibrations in Thomas Mann’s novella. It is an elegant, even a delightful game of words. "(Saarbrücker Zeitung)