On the loss of life of actor Roman Kaminski | EUROtoday

He hasn’t performed the main roles for a very long time, once I noticed him on the Salzburg Festival in 2010: I used to be an intern and he was within the choir. As certainly one of twelve males who, in reminiscence of his legendary “Oresteia” manufacturing on the Berlin Schaubühne, Peter Stein allowed to look as a various unit and as soon as once more inspired them to talk exactly along with nice, passionate perseverance. “You are the real main character,” Stein whispered when his well-known main man wasn’t round. And the lads, all of whom had been members of the Berliner Ensemble, murmured in settlement. And one particular person murmured significantly expressively, and that was Roman Kaminski.

He, who had performed the key roles on the German Theater in Berlin in the course of the GDR period, comparable to Ferdinand in Shakespeare’s “Storm” or Lysander in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, who, along with administrators comparable to Alexander Lang, Friedo Solter and Thomas Langhoff, had change into accustomed to the follow of inventive criticism by the flower, he was now on the stage in Salzburg and allowed himself to be led and guided by the West German epoch director. The younger trainee, who was in any other case tasked with writing the script and searching up historical Greek vocabulary, instantly seen: the depth with which an actor adopted directions and applied concepts. How he used his voice with craftsmanship satisfaction and frequently advised completely different intonations. It wasn’t about illuminating the psychological depths of a personality or making huge statements about angle and viewpoint, however quite about creating an thrilling, multi-voiced sound physique.

And Kaminski, this actor who was initially skilled as a typesetter, impressively knew the way to ennoble the function of the chorister along with his expressive abilities. Since he, who was skilled in some ways, took the sport severely, even in its framed method, the much less disciplined younger actors, who had been secretly jealous of all the person actors, additionally adopted his instance. It wasn’t simply self-discipline that Kaminski exuded throughout that rehearsal interval within the wet Salzburg early summer time of 2010, it was the calmness of an actor examined by historical past and oriented in direction of change. He, who left the GDR shortly earlier than the autumn of the Berlin Wall and took a job with Claus Peymann – first in Vienna, then in Berlin – was the epitome of that kind of actor from the East that’s now slowly dying out, whose performing by no means hid his personal academic path, however quite the opposite confidently highlighted it: performing as a craft, not as a stroke of genius.

Especially in distinction to the well-known main actor on the time, Klaus Maria Brandauer, whose attraction was primarily based on the undisciplined mania, the prodigy impact, Kaminski appeared like a rock within the performative surf on the time. The prospects of his recreation had been at all times an expression of his skills. With Roman Kaminski, who has now died, a bit of the ethos of German theater can be leaving the stage: an ethos that got here from the East and asserted itself within the West. Despite all the things and above all for us.