And then how did you hear about Elisabeth in Essen?
I shared a dressing room with Jens Janke who played Rudolf here, and his wife is the company management for Stage Holding, for Elisabeth. So they knew me, and they’d heard me sing a lot of times, and he said, “You would be perfect for
it, you have to go and audition.” So I did. I had no idea about Elisabeth, I’d never heard anything. And to be honest with you, the first time I heard the CD, I was like, “What is this?” I didn’t like it. And I thought, this Rudolf…I don’t
know, I thought maybe Tod would be cool, he has a few cool songs, but I wasn’t so deeply impressed. *laughing* I didn’t say that. I thought it was fantastic.
What did you sing for your audition?
I sang, to show my German, I think probably the only German piece I knew, Phoebus’ song from Glöckner, and actually, the musical director from here, Caspar Richter, saw me there. He was at the first audition. And he thought as well I should
sing for Tod. So I sang, I was actually the first one to be ready for Tod as well. I mean, they said, “Okay, we want you as Rudolf, we want you to sing for Death as well.” Because, I was a bit like, I didn’t want to take it at the beginning. I thought,
if I get to do Tod, well then maybe. And then it turned out I could do that as well. But then came the third problem, which was getting me out of Glöckner, because I was still under contract there. And that was a big thing. The only thing that kept me
moving was that I had the support of Stage Holding. Even Joop was like, “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out.” But that was tough. And I didn’t have an agent, so I did everything myself. And it ended up that they had to buy me out, Stage Holding, and they did.
That’s amazing. That doesn’t happen a lot of times. And it turned out to be the right decision to go there.
And then you got to be in the original cast, and make the cast album and everything, how was that?
That was cool, it was my first experience with Sylvester and Michael. It was hard, because I remember the recording of “Schatten” was a Monday morning, ten o’clock in Köln, and I played four shows on the weekend in Berlin, so I had to fly in the morning
and then just record on my free day and fly back. So it was hard, but it worked out. And of course, it was a huge thing because it was also Stage Holding’s first show in Germany, so they kind of could not afford to let it be a disaster, it had to be a
success.
I love the character of Death in Elisabeth, I find him so interesting. How do you look at him? When you go to play the character, what do you see as his motivations?
His motivation is hard to say. I’d say, he reacts on what he gets, maybe. Or “it”/”he”. In this case, it is a “he”. You have to personalize it. You also have to make it a human figure somehow, with some human characteristics, even though…it’s really hard
to interpret that part, and it’s really hard to be specific and clear when you talk about it, and what your intentions and stuff are. It’s easier to be specific when you talk about scenes.
Okay, I have a specific scene then. The scene after Rudolf’s death, where Elisabeth offers herself to him, why does he turn her down there?
I would say, first of all, because it’s not her time to go. You know, her destiny is to be stabbed ten years later, and not then, when Rudolf dies. And I think, Death is there because her sorrow makes her want to kill herself and makes her want to die, to be
close to him again, or to stop feeling this pain. And that’s why he’s there. And I think it’s her destiny that says, it’s not your time yet. But in this case, and in Essen it was also directed that way, that Tod has been let down so many times by Elisabeth, that
this time, he’s the one that says, “You suffer. I don’t want you this time. Not like that.” In Essen, she was, you know, throwing herself on his grave and saying like, “Take me now”, almost a bit like, “Rape me”. And he goes, “No, not like that.” That’s his power
as well. And of course you have to play with that as an actor. And that’s nice to do, I love those scenes, where you can go like, I’m right here, and then, no.
I’m going to skip ahead a bit, and talk about the differences between Elisabeth here in Vienna and the Essen show. How do you think Rudolf is different in this production than he was in Essen?
Well, you have to play it a bit differently because it’s built up differently here, with the order of the songs. And it’s a bit smaller here as well, you don’t have this verschwörung [conspiracy] theory built in, which actually explained the character a
bit more in Essen, I thought, which was nice. And it made the character have a little bit bigger build up, you know? And here, with “Schatten”, it comes a bit from nowhere, I think, his first entrance. I think it’s mainly because we’re in Vienna, and people know
the story, the history.
Yeah, I actually thought that. Lucheni just throws him on stage, and I thought, if I hadn’t seen the show before, I don’t know if I would know who he was.
Exactly. No, it’s not easy to know. And in Essen, you had this first fight scene between them [Franz Joseph and Rudolf] first, that went into “Hass”, then came “Schatten”. So, actually, it was more logical in that way, I thought. Here you have to kind of…it’s hard
if you don’t know the history.
 Jesper and Máté Kámáras in Elisabeth in Vienna |
So, is there anything you can do, as an actor, to help the audience to follow it?
Well, I can’t change the fact that it’s hard to understand everything if you don’t know everything, or if you don’t know the piece. But, it’s a different build up here. I think Rudolf is a bit more closed-up in himself, in this production. He doesn’t walk around so much,
he’s not so free. I mean, the whole “Schatten” scene, I feel I’m sitting on this bed, more or less, the whole time, while in Essen, I was walking around, I had more space, and movement, and here it’s more close-up acting, in a way.
And what about “Spiegel”? How is that different?
“Spiegel” is a lot different because there’s no direct contact with Elisabeth. And that makes a huge difference in how you sing it, and in Essen…that’s the thing with the whole production. I think this production here in Vienna is more intellectual, and I think the Essen
production is more emotional. And I think the scene with “Spiegel” in Essen was really emotional in that way, because it was more up-to-date, but maybe not how it was back then, I don’t know how they would interact. In Essen, it was the big thing that Rudolf takes the hand of
Elisabeth, he puts his hand there, and she kind of stiffens and slowly takes it away. Here, we don’t even have contact, he doesn’t even dare to look in her eyes. And it’s different, you have to play it differently as well of course. And I’m the kind of actor, I’m always
looking, but I’m a slow searcher. Uwe works the same way, that’s why we understood each other very well, because we slowly, gradually found the parts in ourselves.
So, what made you come here and do this role again, after you’d already done it in Essen?
Well, first of all, I love Vienna, and I wanted to come here. And I didn’t want to do eight shows a week, for fifteen months, or for a year. That’s why the choice was a little bit between if I was going to audition for Les Mis, which I did as well, and go the whole way
out there, or actually accept this. And I wanted to have more time for myself, and for my CD, and I have some off shows, and I think I can have a bit more of an easygoing life here, than do a new show directly with so many shows.
Is that part of why you did Miss Saigon as well, with the flexible schedule?
Yeah, a little bit.
What else made you do that show?
Miss Saigon? Well, that choice was not so hard, because it’s a great part and a great piece, and that was also very good to do after Essen, because you kind of stiffen up afterwards if you work too much in the same show all the time. You need to do new characters.
That’s why it’s not good for me to be here, in that way. I mean, it would be better of course to do a new part, a new show that I haven’t done, of course. And it’s also sad if you have worked in the business for five, six years, and you’ve done four parts. That’s not much.
I would rather have done 10 parts. But that’s unfortunately the case in Germany, because everything is long-running. So you see a lot of actors that have done very few parts, whereas if you go to Sweden, there maybe people do normally four or five parts a year, because it’s
always changing.
Would you like to go back and perform in Sweden?
I don’t know…to be honest with you, I don’t want that. I want to go back to Stockholm at some point, I want to live there, I think. That’s my home. You know, I have my family there, and friends, a few still. But, I’ve never had the drive to go there to be a musical star, to
perform musicals there. I don’t know if that’s a bit weird. I kind of like it here where it’s a bit … not so close. I don’t know if it makes sense. I could find myself doing something else in Stockholm though.
What else would you like to do?
I don’t know. Well, produce music or, if I would do a CD … which I am … then maybe Stockholm is the right place, or Sweden. There’s a lot of good musicians and producers there.
So, long term, how long do you think you actually want to be acting in shows?
I can’t say. I don’t see myself growing really old in this job. Because I look at colleagues that are…unless you have the opportunity to choose whatever you want to do, and you can do it on your terms, then it’s great, of course. Then you can have a nice life. But if you
to make good money, but not that good that you can do what you want, then you always have to move where the city is, and if you eventually want to have a family or children or whatever, it’s hard I think. Unless you’re Anthony Warlow, you know. He probably can pick.