Swiss director Christoph Marthaler, who currently heads Germany's Ruhrtriennale music and arts festival, has been awarded the 2018 International Ibsen Award. The award is seen as the Nobel Prize of the theater world.
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Per Boye Hansen, head of the jury for the International Ibsen Award, said as a director in Europe's great theaters Christoph Marthaler has "created his own unique stage language that paves the way for new insight into interpersonal relationships and has inspired a large international audience."
Boye Hansen added that Marthaler has influenced and significantly renewed contemporary spoken and musical theater.
'Unmistakable look and sound'
"Many of his productions make a collage of text passages and pieces of music that are combined into a new work," the jury said, explaining its choice. "Marthaler's productions have developed an unmistakable look and sound through their rhythmical way of speaking and singing. The characters seem to have fallen out of time, whereby one senses all the more how time has left its mark on them."
The world's most famous theaters and opera houses
On World Theater Day we look at some of the world's outstanding theater and opera houses. From ancient Greece's amphitheaters to Sydney Opera House's nesting arches, theaters have defined our landscapes for millennia.
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The Theater of Dionysus Eleuthereus in Athens
The beginnings of theater in Ancient Greece were dominated by performances of ritual songs, dances and sacrifices in honor of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and ecstasy. Greek tragedy then evolved out of these. According to Aristotle's (384-322 B.C.) theories of drama, the art form should cause the viewers to shudder and feel compassion, resulting in a cleansing effect.
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The Comedie-Francaise in Paris
17th-century French Classicism, defined by order, clarity and restraint, included authors like Pierre Corneille, Voltaire and Jean Racine. Racine's tragedy "Phedre" opened the Comedie-Francaise theater in 1680. The Parisian theater remains renowned today, especially for its performances of plays by Moliere (above), hence its nickname, "The Home of Moliere" ("La Maison de Moliere").
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The Burgtheater in Vienna
Empress Maria Theresa (1717-1780) initiated the theater's creation in 1741, and the famous Burgtheater, or Austrian National Theater, opened its doors to the public in 1888. Today, the Neo-Baroque building located opposite Vienna's city hall houses one of the German-speaking world's most important theaters. The Viennese refer to their theater as "The Burg" and its ensemble as "Burg actors."
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The Semperoper in Dresden
Dresden's Semperoper was named after Gottfried Semper, who also designed Vienna's Burgtheater. The Semperoper opened in 1878 with Carl Maria von Weber's orchestral "Jubel Overture" and Goethe's tragedy "Iphigenia in Tauris." Later on, comspoer Richard Wagner premiered many of his operas in the magnificent building. The building is home to the Saxon State Orchestra and Opera.
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The Royal Opera House in London
When today's visitors enter the Royal Opera House in the London neighborhood of Covent Garden, they are stepping into the third building built to house the royal company. Fires devastated the two previous structures. German composer Georg Friedrich Handel was very active here, both as a composer and as an organist. He wrote some of his operas and oratorios especially for the Royal Opera.
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The Bolshoi Theater in Moscow
Assassination attempts, legends and fame have marked the history of Russia's most significant theater for opera and ballet, the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. Its huge ensemble, consisting of more than 200 female dancers, is seen as one of the world's best. Performances of Tchaikovsky's ballet "Swan Lake" are particularly popular with viewers. Following restoration works, the theater reopened in 2011.
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The Teatro La Fenice in Venice
The reference to "fenice" (Italian for "phoenix") is anything but a coincidence. The name was chosen because the Venetian opera house had to be reconstructed after burning to the ground. The fiery bird, a symbol of the Enlightenment, also alludes to the Freemasons, who participated in the reconstruction. Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi premiered several of his works in the opera house.
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The Metropolitan Opera in New York
From 1880 through 1966, the Metropolitan Opera was located on Broadway. It then moved to New York City's Lincoln Square, where it remains today. The "Met," one of the world's most renowned opera houses, owes much of its fame to the numerous outstanding singers and conductors that have graced its hall, such as Austrian composer Gustav Mahler. The Met gave the first opera radio broadcast in 1910.
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Sydney Opera House
One can hardly imagine Sydney without its visually striking opera house. The unusual building was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Danish architect Jorn Utzon and finished in 1973. While the unconventional design initially triggered a lot of controversy, the building become one of Australia's most important tourist attractions.
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Like Henrik Ibsen, the Norwegian playwright after whom the award is named, Marthaler uses his own theater experience to create his art, the jury said — "a form of art that had never previously existed in the theater."
The Oslo jury praised the director's art of creating "ritualized worlds, which appear to be outside of time, as an assemblage of choric musical works, slapstick and monologues."
"Of all the theatrical performances I have seen, Christoph Marthaler's productions are in a category of their own," said past award recipient Jon Fosse. "They have a musical precision that is beyond all sense and for which I can think of no better term than brilliant. And there is no getting around their oddly human, slow-paced scenic character."
The International Ibsen Award, financed by the Norwegian state, is regarded as one of the world's most prestigious theater prizes. Previous laureates include France's Ariane Mnouchkine, Peter Handke and German composer Heiner Goebbels.
'Swiss theater magician'
By handing the Ibsen prize to the "Swiss theater magician," the jury stresses on the award's website that it is honoring "this inimitable theatrical language, its capacity for formal abstraction and experimental arrangement, its humanistic receptivity but at the same time also the challenge that it continues to be for the audience."
"It is marvelous! I almost don't believe it," said Marthaler, 66, upon receiving the award and the €260,00 ($303,000) prize in Oslo on Friday. "It is in the way the Nobel Prize of theater, so it is really a great honor for me."
Marthaler studied classical music in Zurich and worked as a stage musician before he started directing plays and staging operas in cities like Paris, Madrid and Hamburg. He has been awarded numerous prizes over the years: the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, the Premio Ubo, the Nestroy Theater Prize and the German Theater Prize, Faust.
