Popular Music Theatre under Socialism

Theatre scholars and musicologists from Russia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany came together in spring 2017 at the Center for Popular Culture and Music for a symposium, where they discussed for the first time the topic Popular Music Theatre under Socialism: Operettas and Musicals in the Eastern European States 1945 to 1990. This involved general questions such as: Did the uniform (prescribed) worldview lead to identical plays, or are there in spite of a transnational ideology national specific differences? And what did these differences possibly look like? The authors of this volume describe the phases of development, the national Productions went through, and what influence the import of plays from abroad had on it, whether from the fraternal socialist countries or the capitalistic West. They examine the government guidelines for authors and composers over the decades. Who were the most important authors and composers? Was there any socialist operetta, any socialist musical? And what political, social and ideological topics were negotiated on stage? The volume demonstrates the importance of a topic that has so far received little attention in research on European theatre and music history.

Auteur
Bár, PavelMgr. Pavel Bár, Ph.D., was born in Trebíc, Czech Republic, has an MA in Theatre Studies from Charles University in Prague and a PhD from the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where he's currently teaching and researching musical theatre history. He is the author of monographies From Operetta to Musical (Popular Music Theatre in Czechoslovakia since 1945) and Karlin Theatre: From Variety Shows to Musicals; his articles have been published in anthologies and peer-reviewed journals. Together with his colleague Michael Prostejovsky he creates and presents Czech Radio's weekly show about musical theatre "Muzikal Expres". He is also a theatre practitioner - as a dramaturg he has frequently collaborated with the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava, in October 2016 he became dramaturg of the musical company at JK Tyl Theatre in Pilsen. He has co-translated Kálmán's operetta The Czárdás Princess and also Billy Elliot - The Musical into Czech and co-written the original Czech musical The Phantom of London. Dippel, RolandRoland H. Dippel (born 1964) has been active in theatre, music and art since his studies of theatre science and German Language and literature at the Ludwigs-Maximilians-University in Munich. Since 1992, he has had engagements as a dramaturg for music theatre, concert and dance at the Zwickau Theatre, the Hof Theatre, the Augsburg Theatre, the Osnabrück Theatre, the St. Gallen Theatre and the RoStock Volkstheater. He was engaged as a cultural manager and director for independent opera Productions (e.g. J. Offenbach Fantasio and P. v. Lindpaintner Der Vampyr near Schloss Maxlrain / Upper Bavaria) and for interdisciplinary cultural projects (performances in the Kunsthalle Bremen, Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche Osnabrück, Kunsthaus Kaufbeuren and others). As a PR consultant and dramaturge he has worked for the composer Wilfried Hiller and numerous cultural institutions. Roland H. Dippel is a speaker and author e.g. for Richard Wagner and the surrounding area (Bavarian Radio, R. Wagner Associations), Italian opera, operettas and musicals created in the GDR (e.g. Theatermuseum Vienna 2011, BR, MDR, University of Freiburg), folk theatre and music, customs and traditions, etc. He was a freelancer for the Bavarian Radio (12 theme programmes "Saints in Music", etc.) and writes regularly for specialist magazines. Heltai, GyöngyiGyöngyi Heltai (PhD) is a theatre historian and currently a Hungarian Visiting Professor at the Department of Drama of the University of Alberta. Heltai graduated from Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest, Hungary) where she studied Hungarian and Russian Literature and Cultural Anthropology. Heltai defended her PhD thesis enTitled Usages de l'opérette pendant la période socialiste en Hongrie (1949-1968) in 2006 at Laval University (Québec, Canada). Between 2006 and 2017 she been teaching at the Atelier Department of European Social Sciences and Historiography of the Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest). Her primary teaching and research areas are: Hungarian Theatre History, History of Hungarian Popular Culture (operetta), Culture of the Socialist Era and Intangible Cultural Heritage. Jákfalvi, MagdolnaMagdolna Jákfalvi is a Hungarian professor of Theatre History at the University of Theatre and Film Arts, Budapest. She is the co-founder of the Theatron (Journal of Theatre studies), the Philther-hub ( www.philther.hu ) and in 2018, the Kálmán-project. She has published several books and articles on the topic of theatre theory re-evaluating the ways in which politics of memory interact with theatre - under an authoritarian regime. In the last decade, her researches focused on the State Socialist practice of Hungarian Theatre after World War II, on the sovietised reception history of the performances, on the transformation of the Viennese operetta into nationalised one. Jansen, WolfgangWolfgang Jansen ist Theaterwissenschaftler und Germanist. Er unterrichtet an der Universität der Künste Berlin und gilt als Pionier bei der genreübergreifenden, zeitgeschichtlich grundierten Erforschung des populären Musiktheaters im deutschsprachigen Theater (Revue, Operette, Varieté, Musical). Lelkes, ZsofiaZsofia Lelkes studied German Studies in Debrecen, Hungary, and in Marburg a.L., Germany, and Theatre Studies in Berlin, Germany. She wrote her thesis on the role of folk dances and amateurism in the post war theatre structure in Hungary. She is a member of the research group STEP (Project on European Theatre Systems in smaller European countries) founded by Dr. Prof. Andreas Kotte and Dr. Prof. Hans van Manen. Lukanitschewa, SwetlanaSwetlana Lukanitschewa, PD Dr. habil., is a private lecturer and research assistant at the Institute for Theatre Studies at the Free University of Berlin. She studied Theatre Studies at the Russian Theatre Academy (GITIS) Moscow, 2001 PhD at the Institute for Theatre Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, 2012 Habilitation at the Institute for Theatre Studies at the Free University of Berlin. From 2016, head of the DFG project Aus dem Geiste der Bewegung geboren. Moskauer Kammertheater von Alexander Tairov im Spannungsfeld zwischen Russland und dem Westen. Most recently published: Wenn die Flöte Hamlets kritisieren könnte, Kritik als Theater in der Sowjetunion der 1930er Jahre. In: Theater als Kritik. Ed. by Gerald Siegmund et al., Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag 2018, pp. 375-384. - 'Seht, was ich für ein Engländer bin . . . ', Zum Auftritt des russischen Homo Ludens auf der europäischen Bühne des 18. Jahrhunderts. In: Spiele spielen. Ed. by Friedemann Kreuder et al., Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag 2018, pp. 63-78. Mikolajczyk, JacekJacek Mikolajczyk is Theatre director and translator. Artistic Director of the Syrena Theatre in Warsaw, a lecturer at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. In 2012-2013 Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of Washington in Seattle. He also worked as a Visiting Lecturer at the Faculty of Artes Liberales at the University of Warsaw and as an Assistant Professor at the University of Silesia in Katowice. He translated many musicals, such as: Rock of Ages (2019, Syrena Theatre in Warsaw), Next to Normal (2019, Syrena Theatre in Warsaw), The Witches of Eastwick (2018, Syrena Theatre in Warsaw), Nine (2017, Musical Theatre in Poznan), Sister Act (2016, Musical Theatre in Poznan), The Addams Family (2015, Musical Theatre in Gliwice). He debuted as a theatre director in the Gliwice Musical Theatre with the musical The Addams Family by Andrew Lippa in his own translation, for which he received a prestigious Golden Mask award in the …