Freya Monje Sturmfels

Freya Monje Sturmfels (* 1896 ; † June 2, 1981 ), b. Freya Sturmfels, was a German theater actress and lecturer.

Sturmfels had her first appearances in 1917 as an actress on a front tour of the Hoftheater Stuttgart. After that she played the great classical female characters at various German theaters for more than 20 years, with Minna von Barnhelm and Maria Stuart being her favorite roles.

After she married the doctor Robert Monje, she gave up the acting profession, but remained connected as a lecturer to literature and its communication.

In 1939 Sturmfels was invited to the great Schiller Festival in Weimar to perform Virgil's “Aeneid” in Schiller's adaptation. This became her breakthrough as a reciter.

As a result, she developed many programs with careful selections of lyrical and epic poetry from all ages, e.g. B. "Seasons of Life", "In the Mirror of Time" or "German Women's Poetry". Over a thousand literary evenings, during which Sturmfels spoke mostly from memory, was created by the lecturer, who remained active in her profession into old age and always brought literature to new listeners.

Her lectures, such as B. the one prepared on the occasion of the hundredth birthday of the writer Agnes Miegel , the recording of which was published posthumously as a speech record , the Sturmfels spoke from memory over the age of 80 without a manuscript.

Programs (selection)

• Seasons of life
• In the mirror of time
• Seals of our century
• German women poetry
• Slightly cloudy to clear
• Master ballads
• Agnes Miegel in memory

Quotes

• “... tireless work! Search for new topics and the appropriate expression; Despair at one's own inadequacy; ever new hope to penetrate deeper into the poet to be spoken; to prove himself again in front of him! "
• "I or my soul will go where it came from, maybe to the music of the spheres"