{"title":"The Communist Walküre: Eisenstein’s Vision for Marrying German Wagnerism with Soviet Communism","authors":"Táhirih Motazedian","doi":"10.1080/01411896.2021.1941005","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein was commissioned to produce Wagner’s Die Walküre in 1940, after the signing of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, to demonstrate Soviet loyalty to Germany during a time of hostile relations. This would be the last Ring performance in the Soviet Union before it was banished for thirty bitter years, but the politico-ideological underpinnings of this fascinating historic production have been largely overlooked. This article provides a close reading of Eisenstein’s political intentions for this production and posits that he promoted Wagner as the representative ideology of Germany, pairing it with Soviet communism in order to depict a Soviet-German union without endorsing German politics.","PeriodicalId":42616,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGICAL RESEARCH","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGICAL RESEARCH","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01411896.2021.1941005","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"MUSIC","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein was commissioned to produce Wagner’s Die Walküre in 1940, after the signing of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, to demonstrate Soviet loyalty to Germany during a time of hostile relations. This would be the last Ring performance in the Soviet Union before it was banished for thirty bitter years, but the politico-ideological underpinnings of this fascinating historic production have been largely overlooked. This article provides a close reading of Eisenstein’s political intentions for this production and posits that he promoted Wagner as the representative ideology of Germany, pairing it with Soviet communism in order to depict a Soviet-German union without endorsing German politics.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Musicological Research publishes original articles on all aspects of the discipline of music: historical musicology, style and repertory studies, music theory, ethnomusicology, music education, organology, and interdisciplinary studies. Because contemporary music scholarship addresses critical and analytical issues from a multiplicity of viewpoints, the Journal of Musicological Research seeks to present studies from all perspectives, using the full spectrum of methodologies. This variety makes the Journal a place where scholarly approaches can coexist, in all their harmony and occasional discord, and one that is not allied with any particular school or viewpoint.