TY - JOUR
T1 - Displacement, repetition and repression
T2 - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg on stage in the Weimar Republic
AU - Sheil, Aine Catherine
N1 - Cambridge University Press, 2018. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.
PY - 2018/2/5
Y1 - 2018/2/5
N2 - Relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to the performance and reception history of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg during the Weimar Republic (1919-33), but as this article will demonstrate, the opera played an indispensable role in the repertories of Weimar opera houses. Despite an evident desire on the part of some Weimar directors and designers of Die Meistersinger to draw on staging innovations of the time, productions of the work from this period are characterised by scenic conservatism and repetition of familiar naturalistic imagery. This was not coincidental, I will argue, since Die Meistersinger served as a comforting rite for many opera-going members of the Weimar middle classes, at least some of whom felt economically or socially beleaguered in the aftermath of World War I. But no matter how secure the conservative theatrical conventions surrounding the Weimar Meistersinger appeared, the repressed turmoil of the Weimar Republic seeped into ideas about the work, haunting the performance and reception of constructed German stability.
AB - Relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to the performance and reception history of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg during the Weimar Republic (1919-33), but as this article will demonstrate, the opera played an indispensable role in the repertories of Weimar opera houses. Despite an evident desire on the part of some Weimar directors and designers of Die Meistersinger to draw on staging innovations of the time, productions of the work from this period are characterised by scenic conservatism and repetition of familiar naturalistic imagery. This was not coincidental, I will argue, since Die Meistersinger served as a comforting rite for many opera-going members of the Weimar middle classes, at least some of whom felt economically or socially beleaguered in the aftermath of World War I. But no matter how secure the conservative theatrical conventions surrounding the Weimar Meistersinger appeared, the repressed turmoil of the Weimar Republic seeped into ideas about the work, haunting the performance and reception of constructed German stability.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85044338228&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S095458671700012X
DO - 10.1017/S095458671700012X
M3 - Article
SN - 0954-5867
VL - 29
SP - 117
EP - 151
JO - Cambridge Opera Journal
JF - Cambridge Opera Journal
IS - 2
ER -
