Benno Besson
Benno Besson (born November 4, 1922 in Yverdon ; † February 23, 2006 in Berlin ; actually René-Benjamin Besson ) was a Swiss actor , director and theater director.
Life
Switzerland
Besson was the son of a teacher couple in French-speaking Switzerland . He took his first acting lessons in Lyon in 1942 and worked as a director at the Schauspielhaus Zürich from 1943 . From 1942 to 1946 he studied Romance and English in Zurich and Neuchâtel . Until 1949 he worked as a translator and took acting lessons at the Théâtre Jean-Marie-Serreau in Paris. In the French occupation zone of Germany he performed Bertolt Brecht's The Exception and the Rule and Molière pieces.
GDR
In 1947 he met Brecht in Zurich. In 1949 he moved to Berlin at his suggestion and worked as an actor, assistant director and director at the Berliner Ensemble until 1958 . Under Brecht he enjoyed great freedom and staged Molières Don Juan with him in 1954 . After arguments with Helene Weigel , he separated from the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm and in 1962 went to the Deutsches Theater as chief director . There he celebrated his greatest success with the Aristophanic Peace in the adaptation of Peter Hacks . On the evening of the premiere on October 14, 1962, the curtain was opened 16 times again during the 45-minute final applause. This was followed by celebrated productions of the operetta for actors Die Schöne Helena by Peter Hacks based on Jacques Offenbach , the dictatorship parable Der Drache by Evgeni Schwarz and the contemporary comedy Moritz Tassow by Peter Hacks and Oedipus Tyrann by Sophocles .
In 1969 he was artistic director and from 1974 director of the Volksbühne Berlin . There he staged theater festivals in which the actors appeared on stage as well as in the foyer and in the courtyard and hired young directors such as Manfred Karge and Matthias Langhoff .
Western Europe
In 1977 there were conflicts with the Ministry of Culture because of the way he organized the schedule, especially the inclusion of works by Heiner Müller . There were also personal reasons. In 1978 Besson went to Paris. Looking back, he emphasized that he did not leave the country for political reasons. In France, he rather wanted to devote himself to his repressed mother tongue, because working in German had lost references to his past and youth.
From then on, Besson worked as a freelance director at theaters a. a. in France, Austria ( Burgtheater ), Switzerland, Italy and at the Schiller Theater in West Berlin . From 1982 to 1989 he was director of the Geneva Comédie and set a. a. continued his work as a director of the same play in different languages (German, French, Italian).
Besson received the Josef Kainz Medal of the City of Vienna in 1982 (for The New Menoza at the Burgtheater) and in 1994 the Molière Theater Prize of the City of Paris. The Théâtre Benno Besson in his birthplace Yverdon is named after him. In 2002 he was accepted into the French Legion of Honor .
Most recently he worked on a performance of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrann at the Comédie-Française in Paris. He died at the age of 83 after a brief serious illness in a Berlin hospital. Benno Besson was buried at sea.
family
Besson's first marriage to Iva Formigoni. The actress and director Katharina Thalbach comes from his relationship with the actress Sabine Thalbach . The actor Pierre Besson comes from his third marriage to Ursula Karusseit . Besson also has four other children, including director Philippe Besson from his second marriage and singer Madeleine Besson from his 30-year association with Coline Serreau .
He has a memorial stone in the cemetery of the Dorotheenstadt and Friedrichswerder communities in Berlin-Mitte. The ashes were scattered in the Lac de Neuchatel .
Productions
- Don Juan or the Stone Guest (Molière) Premiere May 25, 1952, Rostock Volkstheater
- The Trial of Joan of Arc at Rouen 1431 (A. Seghers, Brecht, B. Besson) Premiere November 23, 1952, Berliner Ensemble
- Volpone or the Fox (Ben Jonson) Premiere September 2, 1953, Scala Vienna
- Don Juan von Molière / Brecht , Berliner Ensemble, premiere March 19, 1954
- Timpani and trumpets by Farquhar / Brecht, Berliner Ensemble, September 19, 1955
- The good person by Sezuan (Brecht), January 6, 1956 Rostock Volkstheater
- The days of the Commune (Brecht), November 17, 1956, Städtisches Theater Karl-Marx-Stadt
- The good person by Sezuan (Brecht), October 5, 1957, Berliner Ensemble
- Man is man (Brecht), June 18, 1958, Rostock Volkstheater
- The Threepenny Opera (Brecht), May 10, 1959, Rostock Volkstheater
- The two noble gentlemen of Verona (Shakespeare), September 1, 1959, Frankfurt am Main
- The Dutch bride by Erwin Strittmatter , Deutsches Theater , 1960
- Saint Joan of the slaughterhouses (Brecht), May 27, 1961, Württ. State Theater Stuttgart
- Saint Joan of the slaughterhouses (Brecht), December 10, 1961, Rostock Volkstheater
- Sainte Jeanne des Abbatoirs (Saint Joan of the Slaughterhouses - Brecht), March 8, 1962, Théâtre Municipal de Lausanne
- The Peace of Aristophanes / Hacks , Deutsches Theater Berlin, October 14, 1962
- The two noble gentlemen of Verona (Shakespeare), March 27, 1963, Deutsches Theater Berlin
- Tartuffe by Molière, Deutsches Theater, March 27, 1963
- Don Giovanni (Don Juan or ...), March 1, 1964, Teatro Bellini, Palermo
- The beautiful Helena von Offenbach / Hacks, Deutsches Theater, November 6, 1964
- The Dragon by Yevgeny Schwarz , Deutsches Theater, March 21, 1965
- Moritz Tassow by Peter Hacks, Volksbühne Berlin, October 5, 1965
- Oedipus Tyrann von Sophokles / Hölderlin / Heiner Müller , Deutsches Theater January 31, 1967
- A Lorbaß by Horst Salomon , October 12, 1967, Deutsches Theater
- Molière's unwilling doctor , Volksbühne 1971
- As you like it from Shakespeare , Volksbühne 1975
- The tragic story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare , Volksbühne 1978 (set design, costumes: Ezio Toffolutti )
- The new Menoza by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz , Burgtheater 1982 (stage design, costumes: Ezio Toffolutti ; with Kurt Sowinetz , Annemarie Düringer , Robert Meyer , Romuald Pekny , Elisabeth Orth and others)
- Don Juan von Molière, German version by Besson and Heiner Müller , Burgtheater 1986 (stage design, costumes: Ezio Toffolutti; with Karlheinz Hackl , Kurt Sowinetz, Brigitta Furgler , Oliver Stern , Robert Meyer and others)
- Hase Hase by Coline Serreau , Schiller Theater, October 2, 1992
- Weißalles und Dickedumm by Coline Serreau , Schiller Theater, October 2, 1993
- Io (I - everyone is next to oneself) by Eugène Labiche and Edouard Martin, Teatro di Genova / Teatro della Corte, March 13, 1996 (set / costumes: Jean Marc Stehlé)
- Les poubelles boys avec L'ecole des maris (School of Men) by Molière, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne , May 3, 1997 (set / costumes: Jean Marc Stehlé)
- Le roi cerf (King Deer) after Carlo Gozzi , Théâtre d'Orléans , co-production CADO and Comédie de Genève , October 1, 1997 (set / costumes: Jean Marc Stehlé)
- Saint Joan of the Brecht slaughterhouses , Schauspielhaus Zurich , February 28, 1998
Filmography
- 1955: timpani and trumpets (TV)
- 1960: The barbed animal: A German gentleman in Paris (short film)
- 1971: The unwilling doctor (theater recording)
- 1992: Benno Besson, the strange friend - (orig.) Benno Besson, l'ami étranger (documentary by Philippe Macasdar)
- 2002: Benno Besson (documentary) http://www.plansfixes.ch/films/benno-besson/
Radio plays
- 1955: Lieselotte Gilles / Gerhard Düngel : The Doctor of the Poor (Rhilippe, a young French) - Director: Willi Porath (radio play - Broadcasting of the GDR )
Fonts
- Years with Brecht. Edited by Christa Neubert-Herwig. Theaterkultur-Verlag, Willisau 1990, ISBN 3-908145-17-1 .
- Drama in eight countries. Texts - documents - conversations. Published by Christa Neubert-Herwig, Alexander-Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-89581-025-8 .
- Jouer en apprenant le monde. En guise de lettre ouverte. (Selection of his texts in French), translated by Henri Cornaz. Ed. de la Thièle Yverdon, Yverdon-les-Bains 1998, ISBN 2-8283-0036-6 .
Awards
- 1965: National Prize of the GDR , 3rd class for art and literature
- 1974: National Prize of the GDR , 2nd class for art and literature
- 1982: Josef Kainz Medal from the City of Vienna
- 1985: Hans Reinhart-Ring
- 1994: Molière - French National Theater Prize
literature
- André Müller: The director Benno Besson. Henschelverlag Art and Society, Berlin 1967.
- Cahiers théâtre Louvain: Brecht-Besson. Le cercle de craie caucasien. Atelier théâral de Louvain-la-Neuve 1978.
- Anne Cuneo, Jesus Moreno: Benno Besson et Hamlet. Favre, Lausanne 1987, ISBN 2-8289-0287-0 .
- Clas Zilliacus: Hamlet, Brecht and Besson. In: Brecht-Jahrbuch 15, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1990, pp. 73-82.
- Bérangère Gros: Benno Besson Maître de stage. Landsman Editeur, Carnière-Morlanwelz 1999, ISBN 2-87282-251-8 .
- Thomas Irmer, Matthias Schmidt, Wolfgang Bergmann: The stage republic. Theater in the GDR. A short outline with longer interviews. Accompanying book for the ZDF documentary “Bühnen Republik” with an interview by Benno Besson. Alexander, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89581-106-8 .
- Werner Wüthrich: Bertolt Brecht and Switzerland. Chronos, Zurich 2003, ISBN 3-0340-0564-4 .
- Joël Aguet: Benno Besson . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz - Dictionnaire du théâtre en Suisse. Volume 1, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 186 f. (French)
- Short biography for: Besson, Benno . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
- Christoph Hein : Not a scribe ... but an invigorating, disturbing provocateur. Benno Besson on his 80th birthday . In: Friday . November 8, 2002 by
- Brecht would have liked it very much . In: The world . April 21, 2004, interview
Obituaries
- Lust for lust. A theater for the people . In: Tagesspiegel . February 24, 2006.
- Making fun of peace. On the death of the great European theater director Benno Besson . ( Memento from October 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: Neues Deutschland . February 25, 2006.
- Jeopardize reality . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . February 25, 2006.
- Let air into the theater . In: Berliner Zeitung . February 24, 2006.
Web links
- Benno Besson in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Literature by and about Benno Besson in the catalog of the German National Library
- Publications by and about Benno Besson in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
- The first bang . ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) 1996, a characteristic of the director Besson by André Müller sen.
- Benno Besson Archive in the archive of the Berlin Academy of the Arts
Individual evidence
- ^ Dieter Kranz: Berlin Theater. Henschel-Verlag Berlin 1990, p. 75.
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Besson, Benno |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Besson, René-Benjamin (real name) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss actor, director and theater director |
DATE OF BIRTH | November 4, 1922 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Yverdon |
DATE OF DEATH | February 23, 2006 |
Place of death | Berlin |