stage
Theater director Klingenberg dies at the age of 95
At the age of only 18, he played for the first time in a guest role at the Burgtheater: Gerhard Klingenberg – here in June 2014. Photo
© Hans Punz/APA/dpa
The Austrian Gerhard Klingenberg learned theater from scratch. He was hired as an actor by Brecht. As a director and manager he worked with Harald Juhnke.
The theater director, producer and actor Gerhard Klingenberg has died. As the Burgtheater in Vienna announced on Wednesday, the Austrian artist died on Tuesday at the age of 95 in Villach (Carinthia). Klingenberg ran the renowned Viennese theater from 1971 to 1976 and was then director of the Schauspielhaus Zurich and artistic director of the Renaissance Theater in Berlin. Klingenberg was born in Vienna in 1929 as Gerhard Schwabenitzky. After the Second World War, he studied acting at the conservatory in his hometown. At the age of just 18, he played a guest role for the first time at the Burgtheater. 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 venerable house. Giorgio Strehler and Claus Peymann, among others, staged productions under his direction. Authors such as Thomas Bernhard, Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard were performed.Klingenberg directed the Schauspielhaus in Zurich. From the mid-80s to the mid-90s he was artistic director of the Berlin Renaissance Theater. There he hired many well-known actors and discovered the entertainer Harald Juhnke as a character actor, for example in Molière’s hypocritical comedy “Tartuffe”.