HEINRICH HEINE’S LE GRAND

WORLD PREMIERE

13 March 2025

Templum – Dä Düsseldorfer Salon

EINE PRODUKTION DES THEATER DER KLÄNGE

Beat the drum and do not fear,
And kiss the maiden bringing cheer!
This is the knowledge deep and true,
The book’s great wisdom brought to you.

Heinrich Heine

Where does a fascination begin? The THEATER DER KLÄNGE traces the roots of Heinrich Heine’s francophilia – an unexplored chapter in the cultural history of Düsseldorf. Growing up the son of Jewish cloth merchants in a city occupied by Napoléon Bonaparte, Heine encountered the simple drummer Armand Le Grand early on, and would later dedicate an entire volume of his “Travel Pictures” to him.

J.U. Lensing’s staging follows Le Grand’s life in episodes: from his childhood in Provence through the battles of Jena and Austerlitz to Düsseldorf. Matthias Weiland portrays the drummer in near-perfect French, while Francesco Russo as an ageing Heinrich Heine receives and contextualises each account in German. This bilingual interplay works even for non-French-speaking audiences – because the rhythm between languages becomes a dramaturgical statement in itself.

Le Grand’s drumming runs through the evening as a structural thread. Jean-Jacques Lemêtre – a long-standing member of the renowned Théâtre du Soleil – provides the musical foundation: with a near-uncountable array of instruments, he connects the rhythms of Napoleonic campaigns with the immediacy of the present moment. Drum and sound become the medium for a story that reaches far beyond its historical setting.

Heine himself described the principle: “I did not understand the words he spoke, but as he drummed incessantly while speaking, I understood perfectly well what he meant. This is, at bottom, the best method of instruction.” In an era when Europe is once again searching for common ground, that sentence sounds remarkably current. The THEATER DER KLÄNGE turns it into theatre – a drumbeat for human rights, freedom and solidarity.