Die Unbekannte aus der Seine - Schedule, Program & Tickets
Die Unbekannte aus der Seine
Finally: Ödön von Horváth's wonderful, far too rarely performed, eerily beautiful crime comedy can be seen in a new production on a major Viennese stage after more than a quarter of a century. The film is directed by Anna Bergmann, known for her complex portraits of female roles.
Around 1900, the body of a young woman washed up on the banks of the Seine in Paris. The police rule out foul play, but instead the pathologist in the morgue suspects voluntary drowning - and is so taken by the beauty of the dead woman that he takes a plaster cast of her gently smiling face. The death mask of the “Unknown from the Seine” subsequently became a morbid and highly sought-after piece of furnishings in the fin de siècle. The peaceful face of the dead now adorns the salons of European bohemians hundreds of times and inspires numerous literary works. Rilke also writes about the “face of the young drowned woman, which was taken off in the morgue because it was beautiful, because it smiled, because it smiled so deceptively, as if it knew.”
Ödön von Horváth learned about this lucid story from a Berlin newspaper in 1931. For a long time he carried around the idea of writing a kind of prequel to this suicide. Who was the unknown woman from the Seine? What secret drove them into the waves?
And so he writes his drama for “a big city through which a river flows”: The unemployed Albert was recently abandoned by his great love, Irene. She is now in a relationship with the restless upstart Ernst. To start his new life as a bachelor, Albert plans to do something crooked at the local watchmaker with his crook friends Nicolo and Silberling. The crime goes wrong and the burglary turns into murder. Albert thinks he is safe - but there is this stranger who doesn't want to reveal her name, who smiles knowingly, who doesn't reveal anything about herself - and who is the only eyewitness to the crime. The knowledge of the misdeed brings Albert and her dangerously close together...
In 1933 - immediately after the completion of FAITH, LOVE HOPE - Ödön von Horváth began work on this piece, which he would later call a “comedy” and which seems to anticipate almost all the mysteries and hopelessness of film noir. It was not until 1947, nine years after Horváth's death, that the piece was premiered. “There is no doubt,” said one critic at the time, “that the poetic word resonates and a mild, woeful wisdom looks into the abyss of life.”
After KAROLINE AND KASIMIR - NOLI ME TANGERE (2021), the Volkstheater is once again dedicating itself to the great, eternally enigmatic innovator of the Viennese folk play - and is bringing this rarely performed Horváth drama back where it belongs: on the big stage. The film will be directed by Anna Bergmann, whose work has won several awards.
Subject to change.
Around 1900, the body of a young woman washed up on the banks of the Seine in Paris. The police rule out foul play, but instead the pathologist in the morgue suspects voluntary drowning - and is so taken by the beauty of the dead woman that he takes a plaster cast of her gently smiling face. The death mask of the “Unknown from the Seine” subsequently became a morbid and highly sought-after piece of furnishings in the fin de siècle. The peaceful face of the dead now adorns the salons of European bohemians hundreds of times and inspires numerous literary works. Rilke also writes about the “face of the young drowned woman, which was taken off in the morgue because it was beautiful, because it smiled, because it smiled so deceptively, as if it knew.”
Ödön von Horváth learned about this lucid story from a Berlin newspaper in 1931. For a long time he carried around the idea of writing a kind of prequel to this suicide. Who was the unknown woman from the Seine? What secret drove them into the waves?
And so he writes his drama for “a big city through which a river flows”: The unemployed Albert was recently abandoned by his great love, Irene. She is now in a relationship with the restless upstart Ernst. To start his new life as a bachelor, Albert plans to do something crooked at the local watchmaker with his crook friends Nicolo and Silberling. The crime goes wrong and the burglary turns into murder. Albert thinks he is safe - but there is this stranger who doesn't want to reveal her name, who smiles knowingly, who doesn't reveal anything about herself - and who is the only eyewitness to the crime. The knowledge of the misdeed brings Albert and her dangerously close together...
In 1933 - immediately after the completion of FAITH, LOVE HOPE - Ödön von Horváth began work on this piece, which he would later call a “comedy” and which seems to anticipate almost all the mysteries and hopelessness of film noir. It was not until 1947, nine years after Horváth's death, that the piece was premiered. “There is no doubt,” said one critic at the time, “that the poetic word resonates and a mild, woeful wisdom looks into the abyss of life.”
After KAROLINE AND KASIMIR - NOLI ME TANGERE (2021), the Volkstheater is once again dedicating itself to the great, eternally enigmatic innovator of the Viennese folk play - and is bringing this rarely performed Horváth drama back where it belongs: on the big stage. The film will be directed by Anna Bergmann, whose work has won several awards.
Subject to change.