Quartet (Heiner Müller)

Quartet is a play by Heiner Müller . The model for this two-person piece , created in 1980, was the epistolary novel “ Dangerous Liaisons ” by Choderlos de Laclos from 1782. Müller precedes the piece with the instruction: Period: Salon before the French Revolution / Bunker after the Third World War.

action

Müller restricts the characters in the plot to the two antagonists the Marquise de Merteuil and her former lover, the Viscount de Valmont. The marquise and the viscount reduce love to sex and pure physicality, rather talking about it. In constant role changes (Merteuil plays Valmont and the Volange, Valmont plays Tourvel), the two characters in the play fight a power struggle in which sexuality and language have become weapons. Skilled rhetoric and perversion are used as a substitute for human relationships and taken to extremes, up to brutal self-destruction. In doing so, however, there is always the emptiness and a kind of end-of-time tiredness that the couple, linked by entanglement, habit and unfulfilled longing, feels. At the same time, they show a pronounced gallows humor, which adds comedic elements to the drama.

Performances

• 1982, Schauspielhaus Bochum , world premiere on April 7th, director: B. K. Tragelehn
• 1983, Wiener Schauspielhaus , Austrian premiere on February 5th, production: Hans Gratzer (with Erni Mangold and Joachim Unmack )
• 1985, Schauspielhaus Köln , production: Dimiter Gotscheff
• 1987, Schlosstheater Ludwigsburg , staged by Robert Wilson
• 1987, Theater am Turm Frankfurt, production: Michael Haneke (with Elke Lang and Rüdiger Hacker )
• 1989, Theater im Palast Berlin, director: Bernd Peschke
• 1993, Primitive Science London, directed by Marc von Henning
• 1994, Berliner Ensemble , staging: Heiner Müller (with Marianne Hoppe and Martin Wuttke )
• 1994, Theater Cooperation Solingen, Man in the Moon Theater London, production: Andreas Schäfer (with Claudia Gahrke and Gerlinde Valtin )
• 1995, Free Theater Bozen , production Reinhard Auer (with Gabriele Langes and Thomas Radleff )
• 1999, Theater im Quadrat Halle, production: Christoph Biermeier (with Anke Tornow and Sigurd Bemme)
• 2006, Schauspielhaus Wien (co-production with Toneelhuis Antwerpen), director: Peter Misotten
• 2007, Salzburg Festival , directed by Barbara Frey , with Barbara Sukowa and Jeroen Willems
• 2009, State Opera Stuttgart , staging: Thomas Bischoff , music: FM Einheit
• 2010, Hamburger Sprachwerk , premiere February 24, 2010, staging: Erik Fiebiger, with: Julia Dilg & Wolfgang Hartmann
• 2010, Stadttheater Bern , staging: Erich Sidler (with Heidi Maria Glössner , Andri Schenardi, Mike Svoboda (trombone), Philip Zoubek ( prepared piano ), Philipp Ludwig Stangl (video, composition & live electronics ))
• 2011, theaterlabor bremen , premiere June 5, 2011, staging: Andreas Menzel (with Kathrin Steinweg, Alexander Abramyan and Anna Ewald (flute))
• 2013, Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar , premiere October 22, 2013, director: Enrico Stolzenburg (with Elke Wieditz and Bernd Lange)
• 2013, Anhaltisches Theater Dessau , premiere December 7, 2013, director: Axel Sichrovsky (with Natalie Hünig and Sebastian Müller-Stahl )
• 2014 Theater in der Josefstadt , premiere February 6, 2014, director: Hans Neuenfels (with Elisabeth Trissenaar and Helmuth Lohner)
• 2016 Célestins Lyon , Première January 6, 2016, directed by Michel Raskine (with Marief Guittier et Thomas Perregaux)
• 2016 Wuppertaler Bühnen , premiere February 4, 2016, director: Uwe Dreysel (solo for Uwe Dreysel)
• 2016 Theater Ulm , premiere December 9, 2016, production: Avishai Milstein (with Aglaja Stadelmann and Wilhelm Schlotterer)
• 2018 Free Workshop Theater Cologne , premiere September 5, 2018, with Alexandra Lowygina and Carl Bruchhäuser, production: Catherine Umbdenstock

Radio play productions

• 1981 Director: Hermann Naber , Südwestfunk
• 1982 Director: Stephan Heilmann and Claude Pierre Salmony , Swiss Broadcasting DRS

Opera

The Italian composer Luca Francesconi processed the play in his opera quartet , which premiered in 2011 at La Scala in Milan .

literature

• Heiner Müller, Schauspielhaus Bochum (ed.): Quartet . Schauspielhaus Bochum, program book, volume 33, The new piece, ZDB -ID 2279425-6 . Schauspielhaus Bochum, Bochum 1982.
• Katharina Keim: Theatricality in Heiner Müller's late dramas . In: Theatron - Studies on the History and Theory of the Dramatic Arts , Volume 23, ISSN  0934-6252 . Niemeyer, Tübingen 1998, ISBN 3-484-66023-6 . (At the same time: dissertation. University of Munich see a.).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Keim: Theatrality , p. 79.
2. ^ Heinz Sichrovsky: Müller's "Quartet" at the Wiener Schauspielhaus: flawless folk art . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 7, 1983, p. 13 , middle right ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
3. ^ Heiner Müller: Quartet . Printed matter, Berliner Ensemble, Volume 7, ZDB -ID 1163211-2 . Alexander-Verlag, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-923854-92-7 , pp. 257-304.
4. ↑ quartett heiner müller - DNT ( Memento from June 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
5. ^ Heiner Müller: Quartet. ( Memento of the original from March 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ^ Célestins, Théâtre de Lyon
7. ↑ Small Foyer Opera House , March 11, 2016
8. ↑ Theater Ulm ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 2, 2017. 
9. ↑ Work information on the website of the composer Luca Francesconi, accessed on May 24, 2019.

Remarks

1. ↑ * March  29,  1923 , †  1998 . - See: Science ›Time. March 29. (...) birthdays . In: derstandard.at , March 29, 2008, accessed on September 1, 2012.