Theater director Klingenberg dies at the age of 95
Published: Wednesday, Jun 19th 2024, 15:10
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The theater director, director and actor Gerhard Klingenberg is dead. As the Burgtheater in Vienna announced on Wednesday, the Austrian artist died on Tuesday at the age of 95 in Villach (Carinthia). Klingenberg had directed the renowned Viennese stage from 1971 to 1976 and was subsequently director at the Schauspielhaus Zurich and artistic director at the Renaissance Theater in Berlin. Klingenberg was born Gerhard Schwabenitzky in Vienna in 1929. After the Second World War, he studied acting at the conservatory in his home town. He first appeared in a guest role at the Burgtheater at the age of just 18. Klingenberg began directing at a young age. In 1956, Bertolt Brecht brought him to the Berliner Ensemble as an actor. After Brecht's death, Helene Weigel hired him as a director there.
As head of the Burgtheater, Klingenberg brought modern directors and plays to the time-honored venue. Giorgio Strehler and Claus Peymann, for example, staged plays under his direction. Authors such as Thomas Bernhard, Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard were performed. Klingenberg directed the Schauspielhaus in Zurich from 1977 to 1982. From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, he was artistic director at the Renaissance Theater in Berlin. There he engaged many well-known actors and discovered the entertainer Harald Juhnke as a character actor, for example in Molière's hypocritical comedy "Tartuffe".
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