She searched for her place

Uncompromising artist, passionate lover, gifted sculptor, genius unrecognized by her time and, at the end of her life, a woman broken by her inner and outer demons: Camille Claudel did not just lead a life like in a novel. Her independent spirit, her wild temperament and her unconditional creative urge also made her repeatedly run up against the social limitations of her time, which assigned women the role of muse rather than genius. Regina Speiseder and Katrin Aissen show this eventful biography in their production Freedom is another place.

Fight for recognition

The production highlights important stages in the life of the innovative artist: her childhood in the French province, in the wild landscape of the Tardenois, which shaped her and where she began to create sculptures from the local clay at an early age. Her friendship with her brother Paul Claudel and their joint rebellion against their conservative mother. Her time at the Colarossi Academy in Paris, where she also met the sculptor Auguste Rodin, for whom she became a pupil, muse, lover and working partner.

Rodin's love affairs with other students and models and her desire to establish herself as an independent artist drove Camille Claudel to break with her lover. An artistically productive phase followed, but it was characterized by money worries and the struggle to survive as a woman in the established art world. Uncompromising and full of creative energy, she breaks social taboos, for example when she defends herself against the antiquated taste of exhibition visitors and authorities, who castigate the nudity of her figures as offensive and deny her the ability to create art.

A penchant for destruction

She also had an unusual relationship with the composer Claude Debussy, whose particular character has not been clarified to this day: growing poverty, the desperate struggle for recognition and an increasingly reclusive life led to Camille's isolation and nervous breakdown. She spirals into a persecution mania and her tendency towards destructiveness culminates in the destruction of her own work. Against her will, she is committed to a mental asylum by her mother and brother - who betrays her despite their intimate relationship. She spends the last 30 years of her life there.

Between dream and reality

With associative images and emotional songs, the production takes us into the cosmos of Camille Claudel. Regina Speiseder and Katrin Aissen bring this exciting female figure to the stage in their own version - inspired by letters. The solo evening is supported by Manuel Heuser on the piano.