Now say, what is your stance on Faust?

A walk through Weimar with actor Peter Rauch

In 2025, the spotlight will be firmly on Goethe’s famous tragedy, as Weimar celebrates it with exhibitions, hands-on activities, and performances ranging from the funny to the serious. A great excuse for us to go in search of some facts about Faust with someone who knows his stuff. That person is Peter Rauch, an actor, who was born in 1947.

We meet Peter Rauch in front of the Cranach House on Weimar’s market square. Apart from being one of the most beautiful buildings in Weimar, this is also the location of the Theater im Gewölbe. We’re going to join him on a walk through Weimar, the town in which Johann Wolfgang von Goethe lived for 57 years and where he wrote his tragedy about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures, with disastrous consequences. Goethe’s Faust, a drama in two parts, is widely regarded as the greatest work of German literature. Rauch has been part of three major productions of Faust at the German National Theatre in Weimar. Back when he was a student, he once took over the part of an angel who’d fallen ill. Ever since, he has been captivated by the play.

To start us off, Peter Rauch leaps onto the stage

These days, Peter Rauch regularly transports his audience at the Theater im Gewölbe to the world of Weimar Classicism – ‘Faust, Part One’, ‘Goethe meets Hesse’ and ‘The erotic Goethe’ all feature in his repertoire. To start off our little tour, he leaps onto the stage and brings the Easter walk from Faust, Part One, to life. “Released from ice are brook and river”, Rauch begins. This famous scene describes life awakening in spring and culminates with the exclamation: “Here high and low contented see! Here I am man – dare man to be!” Suitably inspired, we begin our tour.

In Goethe’s time, Weimar only had a population of about 6,100, making it an easy place to get around. As it was then, so it is for us today as we follow in Goethe’s footsteps. Just around the corner, on Burgplatz 1, was the privy councillor’s first home, where he lived from 1776 to 1777. Today it houses the ACC (formerly the Autonomous Culture Centre), an avant-garde gallery and café. In the cellar below, Goethe used to store his wine and, according to old receipts, 100 bottles of champagne. Doubtless a great source of inspiration for a poet.

It’s only a few metres further to our next stop, Weimar City Castle. The court may well have been an early audience for Goethe reading passages from what he called his ‘half-finished Faust’. One of the ladies of the court diligently wrote it all down. Her manuscript was only discovered a hundred years later and published in 1877 as ‘Urfaust’ (original Faust). We cannot enter the castle itself, as it is undergoing comprehensive renovations until 2030. But even from the entrance we are able to catch a glimpse of the magnificent inner courtyard. A setting like the imperial palace in Faust, Part Two, perhaps? “It’s quite possible that this is what Goethe was thinking of,” says Peter Rauch.

We cross Sternbrücke bridge behind the castle and descend into the Park an der Ilm, where we soon reach the Sphinx Grotto. Goethe may well have enjoyed the mythological subject of the sculpture it contains. He would have passed it often on the way to his summer house near the River Ilm. And he did make the return to the classical ideals of art, culture and humanity a central theme in Faust, Part Two, immersing himself in Greek mythology and making his protagonist pine for Helen, the most beautiful woman in the ancient world.

Taking his cue, Peter Rauch slips into the part and quotes the words with which she introduces herself in the third act: “I, Helen the much admired yet much reviled, come from the shore, where recently we landed. I’m conquered: but am I a prisoner? I can’t tell!” Rauch stops and shakes his head. Ah, yes, Goethe and women. “We do admire him for being a polymath. For his ability, in Faust, to show the sort of chasms that open up when people strive for love, knowledge and power. But at my theatre evenings I also find that female students are appalled at how Faust pursues Gretchen.” A sort of MeToo scandal with dire consequences. Her mother dies of the sleeping potion that is meant to sedate her so that Gretchen and Faust can spend the night together undisturbed. Then Gretchen becomes pregnant and in her desperation ends up murdering her child. “Pretty strong stuff,” says Rauch. “The historical cases that Goethe was drawing on took place in Frankfurt and Stralsund.” Although none of the action is actually set in Weimar itself, the town is still regarded as the focal point of the play’s creation, since Goethe’s creative process, which stretched over more than 50 years, turned the whole town into a philosophic workshop.

Goethe’s summer house stands on the edge of the Park an der Ilm. He loved it here, he landscaped the plot, chose the plants and observed them as they flourished and faded. This is where he wrote the ballad of the Erl King and the poem To the Moon. His work on Faust also benefited from his contemplation of nature, which he described as a yearned for place where people are safe and comfortable yet imprisoned at the same time.

Easter walk with poodle in the Park an der Ilm

A woman approaches walking a dog. Peter Rauch has a suitable quotation ready: “Inspect him close: for what tak’st thou the beast?,” Faust asks his student Wagner during their Easter walk. “Why, for a poodle,” he answers. But Faust seems alarmed: “Seest thou the spiral circles, narrowing faster, which he, approaching, round us seems to wind? A streaming trail of fire, if I see rightly.” Later on, in his study, following a dazzling triple flash, the animal turns out to be Mephistopheles. “This was the poodle’s real core,” notes Faust, a statement that has become a household phrase in German, meaning “that was the heart of the matter”. In contemporary Weimar we make do without fire and brimstone. Instead, the friendly dog owner simply introduces us to Klara, her poodle cross.

We pass the Shakespeare monument and begin to climb up towards the Duchess Anna Amalia Library, which is showcasing highlights from its important Faust collection as part of the celebrations. On the corner is the house of Frau vom Stein, all empty and forlorn, but that is another story altogether, the first part of which is all about unrequited yearning. Goethe wrote her more than 1,700 love letters, their correspondence is a classic of classicism. The second part, on the other hand, is a classic of capitalism that concerns the thoughtless flogging off of a historical location to a Spanish investor. We head through narrow Seifengasse lane to Goethe’s most famous residence on Frauenplan, now an important museum and research centre.

A pizza parlour under Eckermann’s apartment

Now we turn into Brauhausgasse. Peter Rauch indicates the memorial plaque on the house in which Goethe’s friend, secretary and confidant Johann Peter Eckermann once lived. His name now graces holiday apartments and an Italian restaurant. For visitors who hunger for knowledge rather than pizza, Rauch recommends Eckermann’s notes on his discussions with Goethe, which include some very critical remarks by the writer about Faust. Turning right and right again, we reach the German National Theatre.

They’re putting on Faust in 2025, of course, but also Hamlet. The theatre aims to achieve contemporary relevance and chooses plays where most of the characters are struggling for certainty in times of change and upheaval, according to their publicity. In front of the building stands an imposing double statue of Schiller and Goethe. Peter Rauch appeared in plays at this acclaimed theatre from 1972 until 1997, including three major productions of Faust. Former colleagues shake his hand and open up the stage for him. A purple curtain provides the backdrop for his closing words on our Weimar excursion. At the end of Faust, Part Two, it is spoken by three angels: “Whoever strives in his endeavour, we can rescue from the devil.”

Goethe's Faust

2025 - The anniversary year in Weimar

Faust in the theatre, Faust in the museum, Faust on the streets - Weimar is celebrating his main work everywhere 250 years after Goethe's arrival and invites you to approach the classic material in a new way, to recognise much of it and perhaps even to forget your own school Faust trauma - which is supposed to exist.

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Text: Peter Meroth, CMR Cross Media Redaktion GmbH
Header picture: Isabela Pacini, CMR Cross Media Redaktion GmbH, Thüringer Tourismus GmbH