Vienna Bids Farewell to Former Burgtheater Director Claus Peymann

This applause was given twice: first, when the former Burgtheater director Claus Peymann, who passed away on July 16 at the age of 88, was carried over the ceremonial staircase after the memorial service and left the theater he led from 1986 to 1999 for the last time, and again at the end of his final round around the house.

This unique ritual in the theater world for honorary members of the Burgtheater, the escort by friends, colleagues, and companions around the deceased's place of work, was accompanied by a brass ensemble from the director's terrace. Because this is situated above the stage entrance, it prominently reads: "TO THE STAGE". But from there, he now took his leave.

"The Heart to Vienna, the Rest to Berlin"

"The key question is: Where will I be buried? Will Vienna prevail with an honorary grave, or will I go to the Dorotheenstädtischer Cemetery, where Brecht lies, Helene Weigel, Heiner Müller, Minetti...?" the theater maker joked in an APA interview back in 2016. "Sometimes I dream of doing it like the old kings: the heart to Vienna, the rest to the Dorotheenstädtischer Cemetery..." The Dorotheenstädtischer Cemetery in Berlin won out. That is where Peymann's burial, who led the Berliner Ensemble after the Burgtheater, will take place on Friday. However, it became clear more than once during a touching memorial service, attended by Vienna's mayor but not Austria's culture minister, that he had already lost his heart to Vienna during his "royal stage".

"You are the director who will one day carry me around the Burgtheater," Peymann prophesied to him during their first personal encounter, recounted the current Burgtheater director Stefan Bachmann, who also recalled in his speech when he first heard the name Claus Peymann - as a ten-year-old student in Zurich: "The name sounded sharp and memorable." Bachmann found a good balance between admiration ("He was both king and jester.") and distancing from one of the last tyrannosaurs, doomed to extinction, and the "greatest, perhaps last theater king," who naturally had to be overthrown by Bachmann's generation.

Vienna Bids Farewell to Claus Peymann

Dramaturg Hermann Beil, a half-century collaborator of Peymann's for the common cause in ideal detachment ("no camaraderie, but trust!"), highlighted the surprising development of the native of Bremen, who had previously led theaters in Stuttgart and Bochum: "It became the epitome of the world comedy Austria!" Peymann proved "that in theater everything, really everything is possible": "He showed us that theater is freedom."

Maria Happel revealed that Peymann did not resist the honorary membership, "because you wished for this farewell here," the author Christoph Ransmayr began his memories, which also included long joint hikes through the Totes Gebirge or the Höllengebirge, with a "So, Mr. Director: Final applause!", and ended with scattering theater snow confetti over Peymann's coffin.

"When I die, die, die, the Fiaker must carry me."

Martin Schwab read catchy Peymann quotes, Peymann's partner Jutta Ferbers read the "Evening Song" by Thomas Brasch, and Branko Samarovski sang, accompanied by accordionist Otto Lechner, a Viennese song for the farewell: "When I die! Always cheerful, When I die, die, die, the Fiaker must carry me. And the zithers must play." It turned out to be a silver-gray car from the municipal funeral service and not a Fiaker. And everyone who knew him probably thought: Peymann would not have compromised! Not in his final production! The final applause was nevertheless heartfelt. One could also say: Melancholic.

(APA/Red)

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