Klaus Maria Brandauer

Klaus Maria Brandauer, actually: Klaus Georg Steng, ( born June 22, 1943 in Bad Aussee, Styria ) is an Austrian actor and director, who also taught at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna.

Brandauer had one of the few Austrian actors in Hollywood film industry success.

Biography

Brandauer is the son of coming from Germany Georg Steng customs officials and the Austrian Maria Brandauer, whose maiden name he chose later as an artist name. The first years of his youth he spent with his grandparents in Altausee. Later, he lived with his parents and others, on Kehl am Rhein and Grenzach, a town in Baden- Württemberg near Basel, which says that it decisive influence on his acting had development. After his graduation in 1962, Klaus Maria Brandauer began studies at the Stuttgart Academy of Music and Performing Arts. This, however, he broke off after two semesters. In 1963 he made ​​his debut as Claudio in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure at the State Theatre Tübingen. Later he was engaged at the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna. For the first time to a wider audience, he was through his participation at the last staging of Fritz Kortner (Emilia Galotti, theater in the Josefstadt 1970).

Since 1972, Brandauer ensemble member and director at the Vienna Burgtheater. Brandauer is a professor at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna and is also Chairman of the Association " Poetry in Ausseerland " which realizes every summer cultural projects ( inter alia with students of the Vienna Max Reinhardt Seminar Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare).

International 1981, he was known with the role of Hendrik in the film adaptation of Klaus Mann - book Mephisto, directed by Istvan Szabo. Two other collaborations with Szabó followed with Colonel Redl (1985) and Hanussen (1988). All three films were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Mephisto received the award.

Another major international theatrical success celebrated Brandauer as Maximilian Largo, opponent of Sean Connery in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again (1983). On the side of Connery Brandauer played again in the critically acclaimed espionage thriller The Russia House (1990).

Brandauer is one of the few Austrians who were able to make a name for himself in Hollywood; he got more American critics awards than any other German-speaking film actor. For the role of Baron Bror Blixen - Finecke in Out of Africa, he received a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination.

On the occasion of the so-called Mozart Year - the appreciation of Mozart's 250th birthday - Brandauer was hired as a spokesperson for a recitation of Mozart's letters. The national broadcasters of the German public service broadcasting every day the reading of a letter sent in 2006, surrounded by music of Mozart.

In 2006 he presented in Berlin in the reopened Admiral Palace directed the production of Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera, in which participated, among others, Katrin Sass and Campino. The reopening of the venue on the occasion of 50th anniversary of Brecht was endangered until recently, the samples were parallel to the unfinished construction. Despite some bad reviews in seven weeks saw more than 70,000 spectators, the staging, which made ​​her one of the most successful theater productions at all.

Almost simultaneously staged Brandauer at the Cologne Opera Richard Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin, the premiere of which ushered in the beginning of the season on September 9, 2006. 2007 was Klaus Maria Brandauer in Berlin to see as Wallenstein in Peter Stein's major project, which was realized with the Berliner Ensemble.

In January 2008, Klaus Maria Brandauer played together with Sebastian Koch, the main role in the international theater production The Interrogation of Harry Wind, based on the novel by Walter Matthias Diggelmann. In May and June 2008, Klaus Maria Brandauer turned and directed by Francis Ford Coppola movie Tetro in Argentina.

Klaus Maria Brandauer was married until her death in 1992 with the director and writer Karin Brandauer. From this marriage came out, their son Christian (b. 1963). In July 2007, Brandauer married the theater scholar Natalie Krenn in the Berlin Nikolai Church. Best man was his son Christian.

Klaus Maria Brandauer now lives in Altausee, Vienna, Berlin and New York.

Awards

Theater roles (excerpt)

• Title role in Everyman at the Salzburg Festival 1983-1989
• Title role in Hamlet at the Burgtheater in Vienna in 1985
• Title role in Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand at the Burgtheater in Vienna in 1999
• Title role in Nathan the Wise by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing at the Burgtheater in Vienna 2004
• Title role in Wallenstein Schiller at the Berliner Ensemble in 2007
• Starring in The Broken Jug by Heinrich von Kleist at the Berliner Ensemble 2008-2013, guest performances at the Vienna Festival, the Zurich Festival and the Hamburg Theatre Festival
• Oedipus at Colonus title role in Sophocles at the Salzburg Festival in 2010 and the Berliner Ensemble
• Title role in The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa at the Saarbrücken State Theatre 2011
• Title role in The Last Tape by Samuel Beckett on Neuhardenberg, as well as guest appearances in Paris, Moscow, Lisbon and at the Burgtheater in 2013
• Title role in King Lear at the Burgtheater in Vienna, in 2013, directed by Peter Stein

Filmography (selection)

Media

" It is this mixture of arrogance and sovereignty, from slick, narcissistic relined insolence and nonchalant, of discipline, skill, success grown self-confidence, has become the Brandauer a public figure, at the parting of the ways: You like him very, or you do not like him. "

In July 2006, he announced in an interview with Playboy magazine that he had for 22 days drinking only water and not taken any solid food. Thus he lost claims to 18 kg of body weight.

Star The German magazine reported from one sample to Threepenny Opera, in which first a television crew from ttt - titel, theses, temperaments and then the star reporter of Brandauer were thrown out.

In February 2013 he gave as part of the Alpine World Ski Championships 2013 in Schladming, a reading of texts that were written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Documentary

• Klaus Maria Brandauer - the player. Documentary, Germany, 2012, 44 min Written and directed by Johanna Schickentanz, Production: EUR culture tv, SWR, arte, first broadcast August 19, 2012 in arte, movie information of ARD.

• The idiosyncratic Republic Aussee. Documentary, Austria, 40 min Written and Directed by: Reinhard Gruber P. and Reinhart Grundner, Summary of ARD, including the writer and translator Barbara Frischmuth.

Interviews

• Gero von Boehm: Klaus Maria Brandauer. July 7, 2006 interview. Encounters. People pictures from three decades. Collection Rolf Heyne, München 2012, ISBN 978-3-89910-443-1, pp. 512-526.