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17 - Operetta During the Nazi Regime

from Part III - Operetta since 1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2019

Anastasia Belina
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
Derek B. Scott
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
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Summary

National Socialism is said to have ended the success story of operetta art: the death of the genre may be situated between 1933 and 1945, caused by Nazi purges. This chapter takes a closer look at operetta during the Nazi regime, dealing with three different approaches. First, I sketch the consequences for operetta of the Nazi ideology of denial (Verweigerungsideologie). Operetta stood against every Nazi theory of ‘German art’ for two main reasons: its dazzling aesthetics and artists, mostly defamed for being Jewish. Second, the chapter focusses on the aim to conceive an original type of German operetta. The examples of Heinrich Strecker’s chauvinistic Ännchen of Tharau (1933) and Hermann Hermecke’s and Arno Vetterling’s propaganda operetta The Dorothee (1936) reveal that attempts to reinvent the genre were dominated less by instructions from potentates than by artists who wanted to support the regime. Third, the chapter examines theatre practice, exemplified by Munich’s Gärtnerplatz Theatre between 1938–44. Even in these years, theatres had to deal with an audience that still demanded the roaring, non-German genre tradition. Operetta offers a glimpse into quotidian culture under the dictatorship, where the ‘death’ of the genre was not as widespread as stated.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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References

Recommended Reading

Dompke, Christoph. Unterhaltungsmusik und NS-Verfolgung. Neumünster: Von Bockel 2011.Google Scholar
Drewniak, Bogusław. Das Theater im NS-Staat. Szenarium deutscher Zeitgeschichte 1933–1945. Düsseldorf: Droste 1983.Google Scholar
Grünberg, Ingrid. ‘“Wer sich die Welt mit einem Donnerschlag erobern will …” Zur Situation und Funktion der deutschsprachigen Operette in den Jahren 1933–1945’. In Heister, Hanns-Werner and Klein, Hans-Günter, eds., Musik und Musikpolitik im faschistischen Deutschland. Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer 1984. 227–42.Google Scholar
Haken, Boris von. Der ‘Reichsdramaturg’. Rainer Schlösser und die Musiktheater-Politik in der NS-Zeit. Neumünster: Von Bockel 2007.Google Scholar
Hüpping, Stefan. Rainer Schlösser (1899–1945). Der ‘Reichsdramaturg’. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2012.Google Scholar
Kauffmann, Matthias. Operette im ‘Dritten Reich’. Musikalisches Unterhaltungstheater zwischen 1933 und 1945. Neumünster: Von Bockel, 2017.Google Scholar
Kieser, Klaus. Das Gärtnerplatztheater in München 1932–1944. Zur Operette im Nationalsozialismus. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1991.Google Scholar
Odenwald, Florian. Der nazistische Kampf gegen das ‘Undeutsche’ in Theater und Film 1920–1945. Munich: Utz, 2006.Google Scholar
Rischbieter, Henning, ed. Theater im ‘Dritten Reich’: Theaterpolitik, Spielplanstruktur, NS-Dramatik. Seelze-Velber: Kallmeyer, 2000.Google Scholar
Schaller, Wolfgang, ed. Operette unterm Hakenkreuz. Zwischen hoffähiger Kunst und ‘Entartung’. Beiträge einer Tagung der Staatsoperette Dresden. Berlin: Metropol, 2007.Google Scholar

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