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Leben des Galilei

Photography: Philip Frowein

By Bertolt Brecht
Music by Hanns Eisler
Staging: Nicolas Stemann

73% Power Struggle
84% Science
95% Show Business

Galilei can prove it: The earth revolves around the sun – not the other way around. He challenges the authorities, the Vatican, almost becoming a revolutionary. Only once he recants, however, is a compromise between scientific practice and institutional political power established, marking the era of modernity. Which was it: brilliant strategy, hidden narcissism, or total failure?

Bertolt Brecht wrote his Galileo in the late 1930s in exile in Denmark and revised the play twice: first in the United States, later in East Berlin. Now, 125 years after his birth and 80 years to the day after the play’s premiere at Zurich’s Pfauen, Nicolas Stemann takes on the Life of Galileo. He asks about the political resistance that new ideas have to struggle with today and about the precarious relationship between science and power in the face of war, pandemics and hypercapitalism.

With Alicia Aumüller / Gottfried Breitfuss / Matthias Neukirch / Karin Pfammatter / Maximilian Reichert / Sebastian Rudolph / Steven Sowah / Andrina Bollinger / Pujan Sadri

Author: Bertolt Brecht
Staging: Nicolas Stemann
Live music: Andrina Bollinger
Stage design: Jelena Nagorni
Costume design: Ellen Hofmann
Video: Johanna Bajohr
Light: Christoph Kunz
Dramaturgy: Moritz Frischkorn

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Audience Development: Silvan Gisler
Touring & International Relations: Sonja Hildebrandt
Artistic Mediation T&S: Manuela Runge
Production Assistance: Mahlia Theismann
Stage design assistance: Johanna Bajohr
Costume design Assistance: Renée Kraemer / Anna Toni Vyshnyakova
Production intern: Linda Hügel
Inspection: Michael Durrer
Soufflage: Katja Weppler
Surtitle Set-up: Raman Khalaf (Panthea)
Surtitles Translation: Kim Robe
Surtitles Operators: Maya Scharf / Josephine Scheibe / Holly Werner

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Duration: 170 minutes, break included
Premiere: 9 September 2023, Pfauen

Supported by D&K DubachKeller-Stiftung

The music by Hanns Eisler was adapted for the production by Andrina Bollinger and Nicolas Stemann

For some shows in September and October 2023 (Sept. 15, 20 and 21 and Oct. 8, 12), Pujan Sadri will play instead of Steven Sowah. On 21 November director Nicolas Stemann fills in for Stevan Sowah.

Performance rights : Suhrkamp Verlag AG, Berlin

Duration: 170 min, including break
Premiere: 9. September 2023, Pfauen
English Surtitles
🛈 Introduction 30 min before the play on 8.4. and 10.4.

Introduction: Moritz Frischkorn, Dramaturgy

Image gallery & Videos

Bits on Pieces

More texts and contexts related to our stagings in the theatre’s journal.

Für das Programmheft von Leben des Galilei hat Moritz Frischkorn, der Dramaturg der Inszenierung, ein Interview mit dem Klimaforscher Reto Knutti geführt. Bertolt Brecht schrieb seinen Galilei Ende der 1930er Jahre im dänischen Exil und überarbeitete das Stück zweimal, erst in den USA, später in Ostberlin. 125 Jahre nach seiner Geburt und auf den Tag genau 80 Jahre nach der Uraufführung des Stücks im Zürcher Pfauen nimmt sich Nicolas Stemann das Leben des Galilei vor. Er fragt nach den politischen Widerständen, mit denen neue Ideen heute zu kämpfen haben, und dem prekären Verhältnis von Wissenschaft und Macht im Angesicht von Krieg, Pandemie und Hyperkapitalismus. Im Gespräch mit Knutti fragt Moritz Frischkorn unter anderem nach der politischen Verantwortung der Wissenschaft, dem Mut, den es für die öffentliche Positionierung braucht und den Umgang mit dem Gefühl der Ohnmacht im Angesicht globaler Krisen.

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The Directors Talk
About Season 23/24

The 23/24 season of the Schauspielhaus Zürich will be special. Not only because it is the last season of Nicolas Stemann's and Benjamin von Blomberg's directorship, but also because the eight house directors are all returning to the house once again to work on new productions. In eight short videos, they talk about their plans.

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