About Gerhard Klingenberg
Gerhard Klingenberg (born Gerhard Schwabenitzky; 11 May 1929 – 18 June 2024) was an Austrian actor and stage director, and theatre manager. He was also involved in television productions as an actor, director, and scriptwriter. He was Intendant of the Burgtheater in Vienna from 1971 to 1976, and then of the Schauspielhaus Zürich from 1977 to 1982. He had a successful early career in Austria, stepping in at the Burgtheater at age 18 to play Camille in Büchner's Dantons Tod and both acting and directing at Stadttheater Klagenfurt, Stadttheater St. Pölten and the Tyrolean State Theatre in Innsbruck. In 1958 he followed an invitation by Bertold Brecht to his Berliner Ensemble in East Germany, and worked also for Deutscher Fernsehfunk directing television plays. When the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, he moved to West Germany where he directed at major theatres. His first direction at the Burgtheater was in 1968, and he became theatre manager in 1971. He brought avant-garde European directors to Vienna, including Giorgio Strehler, Peter Hall, Luca Ronconi, Jean-Louis Barrault, Peter Wood and Otomar Krejča, and introduced plays by authors such as Thomas Bernhard, Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard. In his directions there, such as Hebbel's Judith, he used political analogies to a divided Europe. In 1959, he directed the crime comedy Spuk in Villa Sonnenschein in the first co-production by DEFA and DFF. His first stage direction at the Burgtheater was in 1968, and he became theatre manager in 1971, holding the position until 1976.
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