Music and Opera

Program of a performance of Strauss' Die Fledermaus (May 1933) in the Volkstheater Lichtburg in northern Berlin. With the motto “Glücklich ist, wer vergisst, was doch nicht zu ändern ist” (happy is the one who forgets what cannot be altered) taken from the opera, the Volkstheater presents live theater and opera for people who cannot afford a ticket to one of the established theaters in the city. The program further states that the cheaper option, cinema, cannot be considered a proper substitute to live performances of classical works that should be made accessible to all members of society. Together with the program is a interview with Kapellmeister Hansel-Haerdrich, director of the Volkstheater, Lichtburg, published in the Berliner Bär June (1933) where the latter emphasizes the significance of the project by noting that the Führer, as well as other leaders of the nation like Göbbels and Göring, were too “revived by an evening with the great works of Wagner, Schiller, and Goethe after a long day of diplomatic struggles.”





A program from the performance of the folk-opera Das Bildnis der Favoritin (The Image of the Favorite) by composer Joseph Snaga (1871-1946) from April, 1941. The program describes Snaga's music as being “animated by the primordial, sentimentally authentic joy of music making that is rooted in folk music.” It further describes the difficulties Snaga faced, when the work was originally performed in 1923, due to its clashing with the prevailing taste at the time, which was “decided by rational, foreign, and folk-removed” influences. According to the program, the composer was attempting to reclaim the operetta genre, a genre originally created with the people (Volk) in mind, yet was overtaken by foreign bodies, namely Jewish musicians. Regardless of this observation, the program features a medley of reviews from 1941 as well as from 1923, all praising Snaga's true dedication to German folk music. Incidentally, the plot of Das Bildnis der Favoritin takes place not in Germany but in the court of the great Mongol emperor Kublai Khan.













A program of the Franz Liszt commemorative week (19-24 October 1936), under the patronage of Winifred Wagner (daughter in law of Richard Wagner). In place of a discussion of Liszt's own contribution to western music, the program, announcing a series of 6 concert commemorating his work, notes the composer's significance and impact by presenting him as the one without whose support, encouragement, and recognition the work of Richard Wagner would not have been possible. 














Various programs of performances at the Staats-Oper and Volksbühne from the early 1940, including a the posthumous premier of the first play Zirkuskomödie (Circus comedy) by Bernhard Graf Solms (1900-1938), a member of the NSDAP. The play is described as a “non-political piece, which nonetheless appears to have a political affect” due to its deploring of the condition of a society in a depraved time (presumably, during the Weimar Republic.) The play, together with Solms affiliation with the SA (Sturmabteilung) contributes to the “great revolution” of the Nazi party.