«Das Schloss Dürande» by Othmar Schoeck

This research project analyses and contextualises Othmar Schoeck's biggest opera, «Das Schloss Dürande» («Dürande Castle»), with regard to its Nazi-influenced libretto, the history of its gestation and its reception in Berlin and Zurich.

Factsheet

Situation

Reworking its text and music is intended to make the opera accessible to the stage once again. This project clarifies strategies, procedures and models of political and literary reworkings of the libretti of operas and oratorios, with the main focus on Schoeck's librettist Hermann Burte. The goal is to reclaim the text of his «Schloss Dürande» from its ideological content and at the same time to investigate Burte's own «Aryanisation» of the libretto of an oratorio by Handel (Judas Maccabeus). An investigation from a theatre studies perspective will cast light on institutional conditions and their background.

Publications