Katharina Thalbach

Katharina Thalbach (German: [ka.ta.ˈʁiː.na ˈtaːl.bax] ; actually Katharina Joachim genannt Thalbach; born 19 January 1954) is a German actress and stage director. She played theatre at the Berliner Ensemble and at the Volksbühne Berlin, and was actress in the film The Tin Drum. She worked as a theatre and opera director.

Life and work

Born in East Berlin, Katharina Thalbach's father Benno Besson was a director, her mother Sabine Thalbach, was an actress. Also actors are her half-brother Pierre Besson and her stepmother Ursula Karusseit.

At the age of four, Thalbach was playing children's roles on stage, on television and in films. After the death of her mother in 1966, Helene Weigel took her under her care. In 1967, she made her debut as the whore Betty (later the Polly) in Erich Engel's production of Brecht's Dreigroschenoper. She completed her Abitur at the Max-Planck-Oberschule. She obtained her stage maturity examination (Bühnenreifeprüfung) as a master student of Helene Weigel, Berliner Ensemble. Thalbach played at the Berliner Ensemble and at the Volksbühne Berlin, where her father worked as artistic director.

In 1976, Thalbach moved with her partner Thomas Brasch to West Germany, because he was protesting against Wolf Biermann's expatriation. In West Berlin, she made her debut at the Schillertheater. She acted as a guest star in Hans Lietzau's production of Hauptmann's Der Biberpelz and in Jürgen Flimm's production of Kleist's Das Käthchen von Heilbronn, for which she was voted actress of the year by Theater heute in 1980. She had success with the role of Maria in Volker Schlöndorff's 1979 film adaptation of Grass' The Tin Drum. In 1984, she performed the Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet in Zürich.

Since 1987, she worked as a director. Her break through was the award-winning production Macbeth. Since 1997, she was opera director, with productions of Mozart's Don Giovanni and Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen in Berlin.

Personal life

Thalbach's partner Thomas Brasch was an author. Her daughter Anna (born 1973) from a former relationship with Vladimir Weigl and her granddaughter Nellie (born 1995) are actresses. She is married to Uwe Hamacher. She lives in Berlin.

Awards

Source:

Memberships

• 1995 Member of the Freie Akademie der Künste Hamburg
• 1999 Member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin
• 2003 Founding member of the Deutsche Filmakademie (German Film Academy)
• Member of the Deutsche Akademie der Darstellenden Künste

Filmography

Source:

Theatre and Opera

Actress

Source:

• Polly in Dreigroschenoper at the Berliner Ensemble 1969
• Venus/Galatea in Die schöne Helena (ed. Peter Hacks Volksbühne) 1972
• Lovely Rita Schillertheater 1978
• Der Hauptmann von Köpenick
• Das Käthchen von Heilbronn (Schauspiel Köln) 1980
• Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (1995)
• Frau Jenny Treibel in Frau Jenny Treibel (Hans Otto Theater Potsdam) 2005
• Tante Augusta in Ernst und seine tiefere Bedeutung (Komödie am Kurfürstendamm) 2006 (also stage director)
• Emanuel Striese und Luise Striese in Der Raub der Sabinerinnen (The Abduction of the Sabine Women) (Hans Otto Theater Potsdam) 2006 (also stage director)

Director

Source:

• Macbeth (Schiller Theater Berlin)
• Mann ist Mann and Dreigroschenoper (Thalia Theater Hamburg)
• Der Hauptmann von Köpenick and Romeo und Julia (Maxim Gorki Theater)
• Das schlaue Füchslein and Der Barbier von Sevilla (Deutsche Oper Berlin)
• Don Giovanni (E-Werk Berlin)
• Salome, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, Rigoletto (Oper Köln)
• Hänsel und Gretel and Aida (Semperoper Dresden)
• Die Fledermaus (Theater Erfurt)
• Fidelio (Oper Zürich)
• Im Dickicht der Städte (Berliner Ensemble)
• Die Zauberflöte (Seefestspiele Berlin)
• The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Comédie-Française Paris)
• Wie es euch gefällt (Komödie am Kurfürstendamm)

References

External links

• Katharina Thalbach at IMDb