Frank Castorf

Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz 1992-2017. The end of the GDR gave rise to new artistic freedoms in reunited Berlin. Shortly after the fall of the Wall, rebel director Frank Castorf was appointed artistic director of the Volksbühne. His way of working altered the public’s perception of this theater. The chronological history of the Castorf era between 1992 and 2017 is told here in excerpts from the productions and in a series of conversations conducted on the long sofa in the theater's foyer.

A support program brings the two convicts Gerd and Steinbock into the care of women. There they are supposed to prove that they are capable of integrating into society. Now Gerd stupidly kills a bar owner. This puts an end to their excursion into freedom for the time being.

A lifeguard at Lake Müggel has his hand bitten off and the marks indicate a shark attack. The lake is closed to the public by extending a local festival indefinitely while the city council thinks of what can be done to remove the shark. The public becomes restless having their lake closed for so long and come up with a plan to drive the shark from the lake with large quantities of beer.

Political rivals try to sabotage a new mayor and her eccentric plans for an underprivileged French municipality.

For a quarter of a century, Frank Castorf has created a microcosm in the Volksbühne that many considered to be an identity-forming fortress and a renegade island in the increasingly chic and monotonous centre of the capital. The marathon productions for which he was responsible were true orgies of association that demanded everything from the audience. The film accompanies Castorf's final season and is there when the theatre people get together once more to start a last fireworks display in the face of an uncertain future. (weltfilm GmbH)

The capital Berlin is heavily in debt. Annually it takes 16 billion euros, but gives out 20 billion. The minus is covered by loans, which in turn attract interest.

In the last house just behind the western borders of Russia, between Paris/Texas and Korleput/Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Cindy Sherman, Dogma 95 and Duma 2000, Frank Castorf directs his virst video production "Dämonen" ("Demons") as a sort of post-Soviet-panslavistic panopticon in his own dramaturgy based on Dostojewski's "Demons" and Camus' "The Posessed". All that in set designer Bert Neumann's industrial-designed bungalow (with swimming pool) built onto forbidding landscape.

In the last house just behind the western borders of Russia, between Paris/Texas and Korleput/Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Cindy Sherman, Dogma 95 and Duma 2000, Frank Castorf directs his virst video production "Dämonen" ("Demons") as a sort of post-Soviet-panslavistic panopticon in his own dramaturgy based on Dostojewski's "Demons" and Camus' "The Posessed". All that in set designer Bert Neumann's industrial-designed bungalow (with swimming pool) built onto forbidding landscape.

Unites grotesque elements, tempo, quiet dream sequences, the thrill of a detective story, but above all, he manages to capture the temperature of an actor ensemble that throws itself into the world of Dostoyevsky with immense pleasure and passion.

Unites grotesque elements, tempo, quiet dream sequences, the thrill of a detective story, but above all, he manages to capture the temperature of an actor ensemble that throws itself into the world of Dostoyevsky with immense pleasure and passion.

No synopsis available yet.

Frank Castorf's Ring makes a feature of unexpected settings and striking images, and here in Siegfried he shows the discussions between the young hero and his foster father Mime in Act I against a background featuring giant heads of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao on a replica of Mount Rushmore. The typical mythical nature and forest world of the second act is replaced in this production by Berlin's Alexanderplatz. The Nothung sword is also replaced, in this production becoming a machine gun. While the direction elicited both approval and disapproval, the vocal performances received wide acclaim.

Frank Castorf has adapted Racine and combined this material with texts by Artaud. His art of theatrical and vital immoderation explores how, when it comes to this classical French author, the tragedy of existence is born from collusions between private passions and power.

Méphistophélès, less an intellectual "principle of negation" than a devilishly attractive magician, draws his attention to Marguerite - and Faust is delighted. A deal is quickly struck: the devil serves Faust on earth, and after Faust's death it is to be the other way around. Marguerite is also not unimpressed by what Méphistophélès has to offer: material luxury and sensual pleasure, often musically illustrated by Gounod with a waltz. But the relationship between Faust and Marguerite remains an episode, as Faust is drawn to new attractions, while Marguerite remains pregnant, only to see her unfaithful lover kill her brother.

Frank Castorf revolutionised German-language theatre in the post-Berlin Wall era, bringing to the stage intellectual and political acuteness, brash references and a not infrequent use of crude humour. He brought these qualities to the Bayreuth Festival where his production of the Ring ran from 2013 to 2017. This 2016 recording of Das Rheingold captures Marek Janowski's festival debut as conductor of this unique production, in which Castorf replaces the Rheingold with oil as the central commodity in a pre-capitalist society. The first night of the Ring cycle begins at a gas station off of Route 66, the main road connecting the East and West coasts of the USA, that played an important role in commerce in the 1920s.

A political drama about the assassination of a leading politician. When Hugo comes out of jail, the Communist party has embarrassingly swung in a new direction, namely Hoederer's line. Now Hugo must die.

A political drama about the assassination of a leading politician. When Hugo comes out of jail, the Communist party has embarrassingly swung in a new direction, namely Hoederer's line. Now Hugo must die.

"The Devil's General" - A post war Germany pick up the involuntarily knowledge about the "black hole" of the 1950s.

"The Devil's General" - A post war Germany pick up the involuntarily knowledge about the "black hole" of the 1950s.

"Oil is the equivalent of what used to be gold. A luxury that we cannot eat," explained director Frank Castorf in an interview, outlining one of the key ideas behind his production of the Ring at Bayreuth. In the final part of the tetralogy, the wild journey ventures to the Buna chemical plants in Schkopau and to New York's Wall Street, among other places. Inspired by the aesthetic of Hollywood B movies, the production was first met with disapproval but grew to gain many supporters over the years.

The new Bayreuth production of the Ring Cycle that premiered in 2013 offered spectacular sets, courtesy of Aleksandar Denić. As is regularly the case in Frank Castorf's productions, live video recordings add an extra dimension and in this performance Die Walküre is set at the beginning in the 19th century and then moves ahead to the Stalin era. The geographic setting is Baku, Azerbaijan, so in addition to Wild West capitalism, Castorf also takes aim at Soviet communism. The leading roles are also strongly cast in this third revival of Castorf's production, with Christopher Ventris, Heidi Melton, Catherine Foster and John Lundgren.