Title: Tragedy's endurance : performances of Greek tragedies and cultural identity in Germany since 1800 /
Authors: Fischer-Lichte, Erika,
Year: 2017
Subjects: Greek drama (Tragedy) History and criticism.; Greek drama (Tragedy) Appreciation Germany.; Theater Germany History.; Germany Civilization Greek influences.
Abstract: This volume sets out a novel approach to theatre historiography, presenting the history of performances of Greek tragedies in Germany since 1800 as the history of the evolving cultural identity of the educated middle class throughout that period. Philhellenism and theatromania took hold in this milieu amidst attempts to banish the heavily French-influenced German court culture of the mid-eighteenth century, and by 1800 their fusion in performances of Greek tragedies served as the German answer to the French Revolution.
Contents: Introduction : philhellenism and theatromania -- 1. Only with beauty man shall play : Goethe's production of Ion in Weimer (1802) -- 2. After the institionalization of bildung : the potsdam Antigone of 1841 -- 3. Wagner's gesamtkunstwerk and Nietzsche's vision of ancient Greek theatre -- 4. A culture in crisis : Max Reinhardt's productions of Greek tragedies (1903-1919) -- 5. Hailing a racial kinship : performances of Greek tragedies during the Third Reich -- 6. Of guilt and archetypes : post-war productions of Greek tragedies in the 1940s and 1950s -- 7. Inventing new forms of political theatre -- 8. On the origins of theatre and its link to the past : the Schaubühne's antiquity projects of 1974 and 1980 -- 9. Choric theatre : between tragic experience and participatory democracy.