With Marie Antoinette, the Schauspielhaus Salzburg theater company focuses on one of the most colorful figures in European history—a woman caught between myth, power, and misunderstanding. The musical stage adaptation based on Stefan Zweig follows her path from glamorous court life to her downfall in the revolution and offers a new perspective on a personality who becomes visible again behind projections and legends.
Who was Marie Antoinette? Notorious femme fatale or tragic martyr queen? Demonized by some, glorified as a saint by others, her image seems to disappear beneath countless projections. Was she perhaps, in the end, simply an ordinary, average character?
"It is important to bring out the person behind the historical figure," Stefan Zweig noted in his diary as he wrote his biography of the myth-shrouded Habsburg princess. Zweig traces her path from her marriage to the French heir to the throne and later King Louis XVI to her execution by the revolutionary tribunal – always in search of her true personality beyond glamour, clichés and accusations. WithMarie Antoinette, Nils Strunk and Lukas Schrenk are once again bringing a work by Stefan Zweig to the stage and to Salzburg as a musical drama, following TheRoyal Gameat the Burgtheater in Vienna.
Premiere April 25
Further performances: April 28, 29, and 30, May 5, 6, 7, 9, 15, 17, 21, 22, 28, 30, and 31 May, 3, 5, 9, 12, 13, 20, 23, 27, 28, and 30 June 2026
