Salzburg Festival stages Molière’s The Misanthrope with hip-hop

The Salzburg Festival’s second-to-last premiere this year brought Molière’s comedy The Misanthrope to the Salzburg Landestheater on Saturday. ORF reported that director Jette Steckel and her team from Hamburg’s Thalia Theater showed that the roughly 360-year-old play remains relevant.

The production begins with a hip-hop concert and ends with a measured sermon on tolerance and emancipation. The premiere drew many calls of “bravo” and few boos.

The play’s protagonist, Alceste, criticises people and openly says what he thinks, putting him at odds with social etiquette. He first falls out with a young poet who asks him to give his honest opinion, and ultimately with society as a whole.

Molière used the play to criticise the hypocrisy of the court society of his time. The production also connects the comedy to present-day superficiality, raising the question: How much honesty can people tolerate?

Steckel, a Berlin-born director born in 1982, made her Festival debut in 2009 through the Young Directors Project. She had promised a triptych combining music, video and acting.

The co-production with the Thalia Theater will be performed seven times at the Salzburg Landestheater through August 28.