Fyodor Dostoyevsky Crime and Punishment

Renewal

Originally produced by the Salzburg Festival

Duration of the performance (excl. breaks): approx. 4 hours, 2 breaks (approx. 30 minutes/20 minutes)

CREATIVE TEAM

Andrea Breth, Stage Director
Erich Wonder, Set Design
Françoise Clavel, Costume Design
Friedrich Rom, Lighting
Bert Wrede, Music
Alexander Nefzger, Sound Design

CAST

Jens Harzer, Raskolnikov, former student
Elisabeth Orth, Pulkheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikova, his mother
Elisabeth Orth, Alyona Ivanovna, pawnbroker
Marie Burchard, Dunya, his sister
Udo Samel, Porfiry Petrovich, investigating magistrate
Sven-Eric Bechtolf, Svidrigailov, landowner
Sven-Eric Bechtolf, Zosimov, doctor
Wolfgang Michael, Luzhin
Wolfgang Michael, Zamyotov, head clerk of the police station
Sebastian Zimmler, Razumikhin, student
Sebastian Zimmler, Mikolka, painter
Swetlana Schönfeld, Nastasya, servant
Swetlana Schönfeld, Lizaveta, the pawnbroker’s sister
Swetlana Schönfeld, Lippewechsel, landlady
Uwe Bertram, Marmeladov
Uwe Bertram, Lebezyatnikov
Corinna Kirchhoff, Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova, his wife
Birte Schnöink, Sonya, his daughter

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

“There is an idea in suffering,” the inspector says in Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment to the student Raskolnikov, suspect in a murder investigation, whose life, just like that of most people in Russia during those times, is filled with disproportionate suffering under inhuman conditions. And thus, Raskolnikov becomes enraptured by the idea of an experiment proving to himself that he is a “human being” and not a “louse”, meaning: that he is more than the miserable material of history like everybody else. However, of all things, his proof of his human dignity is the murder of a pawn-broker, and so in this, probably the most famous mystery in world literature, Dostoyevsky describes Raskolnikov's transformation from a student to a murderer and believer. “Mercy,” as Heiner Müller once wrote about this novel, “is an allegation that may never be realizable.”

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