Jacket copy is here in Word doc format.
The Art of Failure is the title of a program about Thomas Bernhard,
sponsored by the PEN American Center and held Thursday, May 1, at the Austrian Cultural Forum, 11 East 52nd Street in New York City, 7–8.30 p.m., with Horacio Castellanos Moya , Paul Holdengräber, Fatima Naqvi, and Dale Peck, and moderated by Jonathan Taylor. More information here. We'll have an account of it on the site soon. -- Stephen Mitchelmore
Hungarian composer Jozsef Sári has written an opera based on Thomas Bernhard's unpublished short story “Der Hutmacher” (the hatmaker). It had its premiere on 29th March 2008 at the Velodrom in Regensburg . For further information see: http://www.theaterregensburg.de/index.php?id=156&no_cache=1 (in German). – Anja Zeidler
--Victoria Harding
Claire Messud, a writer, has designated The Loser a must-read book in this series on US National Public Radio, featuring works various contributors are passionate about. Read why here. --Victoria Harding
The second recipient of the Thomas Bernhard Scholarship for playwrights – established by the National Theatre of Linz in Austria (see entry on this page) – is Johanna Kaptein, who from March to May 2007 will work on her new play in close cooperation with the theater in Linz . For further information(in German):
http://www.felix-bloch-erben.de/index.php5/nid/428/Action/showNews/fbe/101/
-- Anja Zeidler
Thomas Bernhard's only children's book, Viktor Halbnarr. Ein Wintermärchen (Viktor Half-Fool. A Winter's Tale) has been published with illustrations by Alfons Schweiggert; it was first published in 2003 in a volume including other short pieces). In 1966 publisher Gertraud Middelhauve had asked Bernhard to contribute to a collection of children's stories and he agreed. The short tale is as strange and dark and irritating as the illustrtions. More information is on the illustrator's page:
http://www.alfons-schweiggert.de/Kinderbuch.htm -- Anja Zeidler
The German architect Martin Düchs imagined
Roithamer's cone (Corrections, Roithamer's Wohnkegel, Korrektur) as shown at left. It is part of an exhibition at Munich's Pinakothek der
Moderne called "Architektur wie sie im Buche steht. Fiktive Bauten und
Staedte in der Literatur" (Architecture as imagined in literature.
Fictitious buildings and cities in literature), and based on a
project of the architectural department of the TU Munich. More information (in German) is here. -- Anja Zeidler
A Bernhard reading in New York City on February 18th at the KGB Bar in NYC featured several American writers who admire Bernhard or have been influenced by their encounters with his work, reading and commenting on chosen selections. Jonathan Taylor organized and MCed the event; more about it is on the KGB Bar site here,
and a podcast of the event was promised. --Victoria Harding
From the Bucharest (Romania)
Daily News
No. 552, September 23, 2006
http://www.daily-news.ro/article_detail.php?idarticle=30049:
Act Theater starts new season next week
Dana Milea
The Act Theater will open the new season after the summer break with "Creatorul
de Teatru" ("The Theater Creator") starring Marcel Iures, in a role for
which he received the 2006 UNITER (Romanian Theatrical Union) award for
best actor. The UNITER award is the highest distinction granted in Romanian
theater.
The show, directed by Alexandru Dabija, will commence the 2006-2007 season
on September 30.
Besides Marcel Iures, who is the founder of the Act Theater, the cast also
includes Valeria Seciu, Constantin Draganescu, Afrodita Androne and Vitalie
Bantas.
Considered a manifest show for independent theater, "The Theater Creator" by
playwright Thomas Bernhard has been running since June 2001 at the Act Theater
on Victoriei Avenue.
The price of a ticket is 20 RON. Students and senior citizens will pay only
13 RON.
In Perugia, Italy, from March
21st to 26th, at 9 pm, the Teatro Morlacchi will stage
a production of Thomas Bernhard's "The Force of Habit" (“La
forza dell'abitudine”),
with Alessandro Gassman, Paolo Fosso, Sergio Meogrossi, and the artists
of the Circo Colombaioni, under the direction of Alessandro
Gassman. The notice here
http://www.perugiaonline.com/news/article_8053.html
describes it as "A playful satire on the inability of the artist
to see reality." A notice in Italian is here:
http://www.umbriaonline.com/news/article_8053.html?lang=it
Information is available
at 075.57542222, or e-mail biglietteria@teatrostabile.umbria.it.
In Hora Mortis/Under the
Iron of the Moon, a volume of Bernhard's poetry translated by
James Reidel, will be published by the Princeton University Press
in June 2006.
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/8147.html --
Stephen Mitchelmore
The production of "Ritter,
Dene, Voss" with the orignal cast and
directed by Claus Peymann transferred from the Burgtheatre to Berlin's
Berliner Ensemble in September 2004. It was also performed in September
and October (16, 17 & 19) 2005. Peymann left the Burgtheatre in 1999
and has been director of the Berliner Ensemble since that time.
More information at http://www.berliner-ensemble.de/index_spielplan1.htm -- Tom Hall
A Thomas Bernhard calendar for 2006,
http://www.residenzverlag.at/indexf.html
"Say
you walk in the woods one time and someone takes a snap of you;
after that you'll walk the very same woods for eighty years. You can't
do anything about it." -- Anja Zeidler
Thomas Bernhard groovt
Nine members of the Upper Austrian Jazz Orchestra have
transformed passages, themes, motives, and the musical preferences
of Thomas Bernhard into musical works and created a program depicting
Bernhard's life and work for their big-band jazz group. Jazz saxophonist
Christian Maurer developed the concept and Klaus Zeyringer (University
of Graz, Université Catolique
de l'Ouest/Angers) acted as literary advisor. Performances were in various locations
in Austria in the summer and fall
of 2004.
( http://www.toene.at/uajo/index
.html,
and click on Thomas
Bernhard groovt. -- Anja Zeidler
On 12th February 2004, the 15th anniversary of Thomas
Bernhard's
death, the Burgtheater
in Vienna staged a revival of Ritter,
Dene, Voss with the original actors for whom the play was written in
1986, Ilse Ritter, Kirsten Dene, and Gerd Voss. It was again directed
by Claus Peymann, with sets by Karl-Ernst Herrmann. Shown here
are announcements for the revival's Berlin production at the Berliner Ensemble,
Theater am Schiffbauerdammwhich, which opened its
theater season on 3rd September 2004. -- Anja Zeidler
interview with Ilse
Ritter
www.landestheater-linz.at. -- Anja Zeidler
The exhibition "Thomas Bernhard - Ècrire
pour Survivre," photos and manuscripts from Thomas Bernhard's
estate, appeared at the University of Namur/Belge (Bibliothèque
universitaire Moretus Plantin, Salle A.Limminghe, Rue Grandgagnage 19,
5000 Namur) from 12th February to 19th March 2004.
http://www.lettres.fundp.ac.be/allemand/bernhardfr.htm
For a press release in French, see
http://www.fundp.ac.be/presse/presdocs/0402%20expo_Bernhard/CP%20expo_Bernhard.doc
It was in Antwerp from 20th April until 23rd May 2004 at the Centrale
Bibliotheek UFSIA, Prinsstraat.
The exhibition title indicates an "existential basis," Anke
Bosse, director of the German Department at Namur University and of
the exhibition, writes in her introduction to the 15-page exhibition
booklet, and is accordingly presented in two parts like the title
itself: a short biography and a number of photographs in the first
part, and then a selection of typescripts
and manuscripts representing Bernhard's development as a writer, drawn
from published and unpublished works in the Thomas
Bernhard archive at Villa Stonborough-Wittgenstein in Gmunden (http://www.thomasbernhard.at/tbarchiv/index.html).
The second part is presented in 16 thematic sections, starting with
examples of early unpublished poetry, for example, "Die Königin
der Städte" – "The Queen of the Cities",
and published poetry, "Auf der Erde und in der Hölle" –
"On Earth and in Hell," and progresses to pieces for the
theater written between 1957-1960 during Bernhard's time at Gerhard
Lampersberg's
"Tonhof;" then his first attempts at writing novels, Der
Wald auf der Strasse – The Forest on the Street and
Tamsweg, from before the novel Frost was published; then
various versions of this first novel success and of his first theater
success, Ein Fest für Boris – A Party for Boris,
1970, Hamburg, directed by C. Peymann, and of his later masterpieces,
illustrating the great extent to which Bernhard reworked his novels
and plays. The exhibition is organized by the Thomas Bernhard Private
Foundation (http://www.thomasbernhard.at/privstif/index.html). --
Anja Zeidler
In connection with Graz as the 2003 cultural
capital of Europe,
the Literaturhaus Graz
http://www.literaturhaus-graz.at/ie/literaturhaus.html
is showing:
Thomas
Bernhard: Transistor Sounds or: Cold Walls Filled with Music
May to November (opening 22nd May 2003)
“With a simple transistor radio you can
be in the eternal snow and right in
the middle of society at the same time .” --
Thomas Bernhard
Bernhard’s estate has a large collection of LPs, music,
and several
radios and tape recorders, evidence of his close relationship to music.
Because recordings and radios play an important role
in
Bernhard’s plays, they make up a central installation within
the exhibition: on several monitors visitors can view those stage
productions in which radios, record players, and transistor radios
are used by the actors. A catalogue of the exhibition (in German), Sprachmusik.
Vom Klang der Worte. Grenzgänge der Literatur is available
by requesting it from literaturhaus@uni-graz.at.
--
Anja Zeidler
The exhibition
Thomas
Bernhard und seine Lebensmenschen. Der Nachlass
(Thomas Bernhard and his 'Lebensmenschen'. The estate),
curated by Martin Huber and Manfred Mittermayer and designed by Peter Karlhuber,
was first shown in Vienna and Linz in 2001 shortly after the 70th anniversary
of his birth. From 6th
June to 18th July it was at the Literaturhaus Berlin
http://www.literaturhaus
-berlin.de,
the Kunsthalle Tübingen from 31st July to 12th September
http://www.kunsthalle-tuebinge n.de,
and from 7th September to 28th October 2005 in Bratislava. The 12th appearance
since 2001 is the Goethe Institut in Salvador da Bahia, Brasil, from 13th December
2005 until 28th January 2006.
http://www.goethe.de/ins/br/sab/ver/pt1043464.htm
After
that it returns to Europe, where from 11th March until 23rd April
2006 it can be seen in Frankfurt's Holzhausenschlösschen, complemented
by a special exhibition on “Thomas Bernhard & Frankfurt” and
a symposium and other presentations in connection with the 75th anniversary
of his birth, 9th February 2006: http://www.holzhausenschloesschen.de/index1.php?kat=ENGLISH --
Anja Zeidler
Correction
and
Gathering Evidence
were issued in May 2003.