Birthday
Stage legend Dagmar Manzel turns 65
Dagmar Manzel is looking forward to retirement. photo
© Gerald Matzka/dpa
Dagmar Manzel celebrates her 65th birthday on September 1st. The versatile singer and actress can look back on a long and successful stage career.
She is considered one of the most versatile artists in Germany. She acts on the big Berlin stages, sings operettas, stages Pippi Longstocking and as Paula Ringelhahn regularly brings millions of viewers in front of the screens with the Franconian “crime scene”. We’re talking about Dagmar Manzel, who celebrates her 65th birthday on September 1st.
She’s celebrating the day in a way you wouldn’t necessarily expect: she’s going to watch a 1. FC Union Berlin game with a friend. “I like to watch football – including women’s football – and have a beer with it. I always have a great time. I find that completely relaxing.”
The daughter of a teacher couple grew up in East Berlin with operas and operettas. At home she sang to records by Maria Callas, and she conducted entire orchestras in front of the mirror. Then a friend discovered her comedic talent, and at some point Manzel surprised her parents by deciding to go to the State Drama School in Berlin. Barrie Kosky, the former director of the Komische Oper Berlin, once called her an “anti-diva”. In him she had found a worthy companion of her art.
The birthday child also worked as part of the ensemble at the Deutsches Theater for a full 18 years. For her play “Gift” by Lot Vekemans, in which she appeared in a duo with Ulrich Matthes, she received the “Golden Curtain” as best actress, the audience award of the Berlin Theater Club.
And it is “back by popular demand” – the piece will be shown again in October. The new artistic director, Iris Laufenberg, promised her that she would be able to play the piece for as long as she wanted. That means: As long as the spectators come “and my partner Ulrich Matthes also wants to,” explains Manzel.
The Golden Curtain isn’t the only prize she can call her own. She was awarded the German Film Prize for best female supporting role in the film “The Invisible”, that was in 2012. And before that she had already won the German Television Prize twice, as well as the Adolf Grimme Prize twice and the Bavarian Television Prize. The Berliner can already look back on a long and very successful career.
“Every role was always the ultimate”
But she didn’t have a favorite role at the time – on the contrary: she put her heart and soul into almost every character. “Every role has always been the ultimate. I always try to be present in the now with all my heart.”
Manzel wants to embody many more roles. “First and foremost: Mother Courage.” This character from Bertolt Brecht’s famous drama “Mother Courage and Her Children” travels the country as a trader during the Thirty Years’ War and tries to keep her three children alive. “If the role comes to me then I should play it, if not then it shouldn’t be.”
Farewell to the “crime scene”
65 is an auspicious age and one of upheaval for many people. Manzel will also step back and not do as much at the same time. This includes the fact that she has just announced her departure from the ARD “crime scene” soon. Since 2015, Manzel has been part of the investigative trio of the Franconian “crime scene” with Fabian Hinrichs and Eli Wasserscheid. The three of them are currently shooting the thriller “Nevertheless” around Nuremberg, directed by Max Färberböck.
“I will retire and have more time for myself and my grandchildren, for example to go on vacation with them for six weeks,” says Manzel. But she does not disappear from the stage and the screen. With a lot of rest, she wants to concentrate on individual, exciting projects. “I enjoyed everything, but it’s good that now there’s a turning point – a time when I no longer have to and only can.”
Website Dagmar Manzel Profile Dagmar Manzel Deutsches Theater Aufbau Verlag about a collection of interviews with Manzel