Dance on a Volcano: Notes on Musical Satire and Parody in Weimar Germany

Musical theater as an agent of socio-political satire was created in Offenbach's France but reached its peak in Weimar Germany. It was the Berlin cabaret which provided the artistic link between nineteenth-century comic opera and the political song-plays of Brecht and Weill. After tentative beg...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Comparative Literature Studies 1975-09, Vol.12 (3), p.248-262
Main Author: Ringer, Alexander L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cabarets
Comparative literature
Composers
Music
Music composition
Opera
Operettas
Satire
Theater
Volcanoes
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Summary:Musical theater as an agent of socio-political satire was created in Offenbach's France but reached its peak in Weimar Germany. It was the Berlin cabaret which provided the artistic link between nineteenth-century comic opera and the political song-plays of Brecht and Weill. After tentative beginnings in Wolzogen's literary Überbrettl, this new genre generally followed the musical and theatrical patterns fixed by Rudolf Nelson, the composer-pianist, who cast the traditional conférencier in the novel role of intermediary between stage and audience. The attitudes and techniques developed by Nelson and his increasing competitors affected Berlin operetta and the lavish Broadway- type shows of the later Twenties no less than the political theater of the artistic left. And, in all instances, it was a socially committed Jewish minority which furnished much of the creative talent for the dance on the volcano before it finally erupted in January 1933. (ALR)
ISSN:0010-4132
1528-4212