festivals
Castle actor Maertens plays “Jedermann” in Salzburg
Valerie Pachner (l), Buhlschaft actress, and Michael Maertens, Jedermann actor, stand together at a press event to present the actors of the “Jedermann” performance at the Salzburg Festival 2023. Photo
© Barbara Gindl/APA/dpa
Like every year, Hugo von Hofmannstahl’s play about the death of the rich man will be staged on the Salzburg Cathedral Square again this coming summer. The new cast is now fixed.
The Salzburg Festival will offer a new star ensemble for the traditional “Jedermann” production next summer. Burgtheater actor Michael Maertens (59) takes on the title role. At his side, Valerie Pachner (35), who recently worked in international cinema, embodies the love affair, as the festival management announced on Thursday in Vienna. Cornelia Froboess as Jedermann’s mother and Helmfried von Lüttichau (“Hubert und Staller”) as Guter Gesell complete the new ensemble.
Maertens and Pachner replace Lars Eidinger and Verena Altenberger, who have been acclaimed by critics and audiences alike for their leading roles in Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s “Spiel vom Sterden des Reichen Manns” on Salzburg Cathedral Square over the past two seasons.
Pachner was last seen in the international film productions “Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore” and “The King’s Man: The Beginning”. When she returns to the theatre, she finds it exciting not only to play the paramour, but also, for the first time in the history of the Salzburg Festival, to play death as the antagonist of Jedermann, she said. “That will be the special challenge and the special joy”.
Maertens, who comes from a German theater family, is fulfilling a childhood dream with the role. As a boy, he played a small role alongside his father in a production of “Jedermann” in Heppenheim and immediately realized that Jedermann would be the better part. “Now it has come true,” he said. Maertens has not yet been able to say whether he will be bare-chested on stage like his Salzburg predecessor. “I’m not half as well built as Lars Eidinger,” he said.