“Ordne die Reih’n”
The translation of the Mozart-Da Ponte operas in the Third Reich
The aim of this study is to investigate the translation politics in the field of opera in the Third
Reich with a special focus on the three Mozart-Da Ponte operas. Mozart was considered as a central part of the German
culture. His collaboration with the Jewish librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte and the fact that the most popular German
translation at the time came from the Jewish conductor Hermann Levi forced the Nazi authorities to create a new
translation. In the first section of the article I will analyse the various front lines in this translation war,
drawing on Bourdieu’s field theory. The second part of this paper investigates the strategies adopted by a committee
which Goebbels established in order to create a new translation of the Mozart operas. The last section of the article
is then dedicated to Georg Schünemann, the translator who was nominated by the committee, and his translatorial
habitus.
Article outline
- Overture
- Act 1: The diversity of Mozart translations before 1930
- Act 2: Each against all: Translation as war
- Act 3: Enforced conformity of the translation
- Finale: Wicked Nazi or harmless legacy of the Third Reich?
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Notes
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References