La Résistible Ascension d'Arturo Ui

The Romantic period was in many ways a golden age of European intercultural exchanges. The French theatre was inspired by the work of Shakespeare, but also by the German romantics. The end of the century and the Franco-Prussian conflict in 1870 put an end to these mutual influences and inspirations. Prussia, and then Germany, a new hereditary enemy, was no longer welcome on France’s leading stage, whereas in the inter-war period the Repertoire opened up to English, Italian and Scandinavian theatre. The trauma of the second world war left scars, but while it is true that the Comédie-Française performed the German repertoire little, the German influence was now felt more in the approach to staging than in the choice of texts.

After the English collaborations of the 1970s, the Comédie-Française staged a memorable production with the German director Klaus Michaël Grüber.

He staged a mythical and revolutionary Bérénice. There were numerous attacks on the production, which stirred up resentments half a century old. Some saw it as a masterful interpretation of Racine’s tragedy, as a reinvention of the alexandrine verse, others argued about the desirability of entrusting a masterpiece of French classical theatre to a German director. The Troupe emerged with an enhanced reputation from this experience and the encounter with a director from a different theatrical tradition. Other German directors followed in his footsteps: Alexander Lang, Mathias Langhoff, Isabelle Osthues, Lukas Hemleb and Katharina Thalbach.