A 17th-century power broker learns that loyalty is currency—and the market just crashed.
Wallenstein is adaptation of the drama by Friedrich Schiller. Set midway through the religious conflicts that ravaged war-torn Europe in the 17th century, the 18th-century German dramatist Friedrich Schiller wrote 3 plays that chronicle the final year and downfall of the celebrated Bohemian leader Albrecht Wallenstein, duke of Friedland (1583-1634), and explores the factors contributing to his demise.
Acting
Thomas Holtzmann's Wallenstein—charisma so potent you forgive the ego.
Production
Wirth stages Schiller like a fever dream of candlelit corridors.
Director
Franz Peter Wirth
Thomas Holtzmann
Wallenstein
Krista Stadler
Herzogin von Friedland
Rolf Becker
Octavio Piccolomini
Jacques Breuer
Max Piccolomini
Rita Russek
Gräfin Terzky
Karl-Heinz von Hassel
Feldmarschall Illo
Walter Renneisen
General Isolani
Dieter Kirchlechner
Buttler
Friedrich von Thun
Kriegsrat von Questenberg
Peter Fricke
Oberst Wrangel
Heinz Weiss
Kommandant Gordon
Heinz Schimmelpfennig
Bürgermeister von Eger
Thomas Thieme
Mac Donald
Christian Berkel
Schwedischer Hauptmann
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Schiller wrote this 150 years after Wallenstein's death, using the Thirty Years' War to critique absolutist power—subversive stuff for 1799.
The real Wallenstein was assassinated on February 25, 1634; Schiller invented the romantic Max subplot entirely. History needed more heartbreak, apparently.
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