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Woman, The Eternal
Temptation
by Christine Dössel/Süddeutsche Zeitung,
Munich
Alma a Venezia: in its seventh year, Paulus Manker is showing
his simultaneous theatre on the life of Alma Mahler-Werfel
in Venice - and we still cannot see enough
Death in Venice. Night-time. A gondola, decorated with torches,
stops in front of the Palazzo Zenobio by the Rio dei Carmini.
From the windows of the Palace drifts majestic music: the
Funeral March from Mahler's Fifth Symphony. Two gondoliers
solemnly take delivery of a coffin - the coffin of Gustav
Mahler - delicately heave it into the boat, then glide away
into the darkness. Several tourists on the other side of the
bridge rush to take photos, and there is a flurry of flashlights,
for death in Venice is a much sought-after motif. Who cares
that it is a scene from a play? After all, the whole of Venice
is a stage, as if designed to tell of love and death and the
depths of desire. Indeed it is the ideal place for that femme
fatale to whom this evening of theatre is dedicated: Alma
Mahler, née Schindler, later Gropius, later Werfel
- lover and life partner of one of the leading artists of
her day. Muse, mistress and termagant. She claimed to provide
a "leg-up" - for the best in every man: "Every
genius is simply one more perfect feather for my nest."
The widow of the four arts
She was a sex goddess, a robber of semen, who allegedly claimed
that "nothing tastes as good as the sperm of a genius".
Her effect on artists appears to have been akin to that of
a drug. Composer Gustav Mahler, husband number one, was twenty
years older than she and as if addicted to her. What he was
unable to give her in bed, she obtained from architect Walter
Gropius, husband number two following Mahler's death, and
"the only one who was my racial equal". Yet Alma
was not faithful to him either. In 1912, she met painter Oskar
Kokoschka, and began with him a passionate affair which he
immortalized in his painting Windsbraut. "He was like
the Biblical Flood," noted Alma. When, after three years,
she no longer wished to see him, Kokoschka had a life-size
doll made of Alma, an exact image of his beloved down to the
most intimate details.
At 50, Alma, whom Kokoschka described as a "wild creature",
married for a third time; her new husband was Jewish writer
Franz Werfel, who perceived in his saviour a goddess. Indeed,
as early as 1918, while still married to Gropius, Alma became
pregnant by him. Werfel's passion at the time was so ardent
that he expelled the child from her womb in a pool of blood;
a few months later, the child was dead.
Alma, eternally tempting woman, was known as the "widow
of the four arts". Posthumously, she has even conquered
a fifth art: theatre. For Viennese actor and director Paulus
Manker - himself, like Kokoschka, notorious as an angry young
man and lothario - has fallen victim to the voracious Alma.
And he has created a monument to her which is indeed entirely
worthy of his predecessors: the theatrical spectacle Alma
- A Show Biz ans Ende, after a text by Israeli author Joshua
Sobol - a journey through Alma's life, staged as a "polydrama",
with various plot elements running in parallel. The play,
first performed in 1996 at the Wiener Festwochen and made
into a film by Paulus Manker in 1999, has long since been
a cult among connoisseurs. There are fans who have seen the
performance a dozen times; indeed the biggest "Almaniac"
boasts a total of 73 performances. Six summers long, the Sanatorium
Purkersdorf outside Vienna served as a venue for the show,
an empty Jugendstil building whose rooms Manker's ensemble
had fitted out in turn-of-the-century style. One hundred and
forty performances took place there, all of them sell-outs,
and in the process 23,044 candles and 2,736 torches were burnt,
and at the funeral banquet in honour of Gustav Mahler - the
menu is part of the performance - the audience was treated
to a vast quantity of baked chicken wings, boiled fillet of
beef and apple strudel, as well as 3,762 bottles of wine.
Now in its seventh year, the production has found itself
looking for a new venue, and has set off on tour. The first
stop is Venice, the city in which the young Alma once received
her first kiss from Gustav Klimt, and the place where she
later travelled with Oskar Kokoschka. In 1922, she bought
a house there with Franz Werfel, which she named Casa Alma.
It was also in Venice that, in 1934, her daughter Manon, born
of her marriage with Walter Gropius, fell ill. The girl, who
was considered a stunning beauty, died of polio just one year
later, at the age of thirteen. Alban Berg composed his Violin
Concerto in her honour, dedicating it to "the memory
of an angel"; and naturally, besides Mahler's symphonies,
the audience hear this work too in Manker's production as
they trace the path of Alma's life.
Alma a Venezia : on the Italian tour, English is the main
language spoken, though the scenes with Werfel (Nikolaus Paryla)
are in Italian. The beautiful Palazzo Zenobio on the Fondamente
del Soccorso has been rented for the show, a building dating
from the late 17th century. As in Purkersdorf, here too, all
interior and exterior spaces are used for the performance,
from the splendid hall of mirrors on the first floor to the
rooms leading into the courtyard and the neighbouring garden.
Once again, Georg Resetschnig has decorated the rooms in the
style of the period, faithful down to the smallest detail,
and using exquisite furniture, old carpets and paintings,
music manuscripts, documents and letters. There is a luxurious
bathing hall and a steaming kitchen, an Alma memorial and
an Italian cafe. Everywhere are chandeliers, burning candles,
and all the props have been brought over from Vienna - a process
of "Almafication".
Yet still we have this feeling of not seeing enough. Simultaneous
theatre offers both want and abundance; who should we follow?
Where should we go first? With Alma number two, into the bedroom
to find Gropius (Xaver Hutter), where we are voyeurs to intimacies,
or perhaps better to go down into the kitchen, where Alma
number three is haring about with Gustav Mahler (Helmut Berger)?
Outside, on the canal, Werfel flees to Palestine; up in the
Kafka Room, the wild Kokoschka (Paulus Manker in a showcase
role) falls passionately upon his beloved. Four Almas are
at our disposal, the aged diva (Milena Vukotic) who, having
returned from the dead, invites all those present to a party,
and her three younger incarnations, played by Wiebke Frost,
Nicole Ansari-Cox and Lea Mornar. As we follow them, we are
able to assemble the pieces of Alma's biography bit by bit
- yet we never fully grasp the whole.
Eavesdropping on a life
"Alma" - the act of eavesdropping on a love life.
It is astonishing how the production repeatedly succeeds in
creating not just atmosphere but also extremely intimate moments
- although, or indeed because, the audience is right up close
to the performers, literally coming into bodily contact with
them on the sofas and armchairs of the salons. "Alma"
is more than a theatre spectacle, it is a piece of theatrical
fascination. A complete work of art - ingenious, sensual and
full of passion. Even in its proverbially ominous seventh
year, it has lost nothing of its power.
Next year, the production goes to New York, where Alma spent
the final years of her life. There she is said to have held
court like a fallen queen. And indeed this is what she was:
the queen among artists' muses.
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