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Georg Wildhagen's Figaros Hochzeit: How an Italian Opera Based on a French Play Became a German Socialist Film

Furlong, Alison Marie
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0056-8638
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1269535387

Abstract Details

2010, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Music.
On November 25, 1949, only seven weeks after the official establishment of the new German Democratic Republic (GDR), the German Film Studio DEFA (Deutsche Film Aktiengesellschaft) released Figaros Hochzeit, a new film adaptation of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, written and directed by novice filmmaker Georg Wildhagen. This is but one of many transpositions of the Figaro text, however, as Mozart and Da Ponte's Le nozze di Figaro was itself a transposition of Beaumarchais's play. Wildhagen’s setting must be viewed as a reinterpretation of the opera, transposed both for the medium of film and for the context of the new, and frighteningly unstable, Soviet Zone of occupation. Within this context, the aristocracy must be eliminated as a positive force; thus Count Almaviva is made more villainous and his wife Rosina is recast as a duplicitous schemer. Meanwhile, Figaro’s characterization is significantly altered, and only Susanna remains as a wholly virtuous individual. In Wildhagen’s hands, Figaros Hochzeit creates a new text, one that reflects the ideals and anxieties of the postwar Soviet Zone.
Lois Rosow, PhD (Advisor)
Danielle Fosler-Lussier, PhD (Committee Member)
Andrew Spencer, PhD (Committee Member)
105 p.
Motion Pictures; Music
opera film; DEFA; Georg Wildhagen; Figaros Hochzeit; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Lorenzo Da Ponte; Le nozze di Figaro; Pierre Augustin Beaumarchais; Le mariage de Figaro

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Furlong, A. M. (2010). Georg Wildhagen's Figaros Hochzeit: How an Italian Opera Based on a French Play Became a German Socialist Film [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1269535387

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Furlong, Alison. Georg Wildhagen's Figaros Hochzeit: How an Italian Opera Based on a French Play Became a German Socialist Film. 2010. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1269535387.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Furlong, Alison. "Georg Wildhagen's Figaros Hochzeit: How an Italian Opera Based on a French Play Became a German Socialist Film." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1269535387

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1269535387
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© 2010, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.