No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Masculine Redemption in Carl Orff's Catulli Carmina (1943)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2022
Abstract
This article argues that Carl Orff's Catulli Carmina – a five-movement cantata comprising a selection of Catullus’ Latin poems framed by neo-Latin text written by Orff himself – occupies an ambiguous space within the cultural environment of National Socialism, especially in portraying ideals of contemporary masculinity. In its overt theatrical displays of male and female sexuality, Catulli Carmina invites association with the perceived ‘decadence’ of pre-war cabaret in France and Germany's Weimar Republic. Yet, through tendentious selection and ordering of the poems, Orff's cantata also ‘corrects’ Catullus’ emblematic triviality and erotic abjection in an era which prized productive masculinity as a symbol of the good health of the nation. Orff's motivations in engaging with Roman culture were very different from Nazism's own fetishising of Greco-Roman antiquity, yet in this chapter Catullus provides a surprising case study for demonstrating how Orff's artistic values were often ‘compatible’ with those of the Nazi regime.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies
References
Berghaus, G. (1996), ‘The Ritual Core of Fascist Theatre. An Anthropological Perspective’, in Berghaus, G. (ed.), Fascism and Theatre: Comparative Studies on the Aesthetics and Politics of Performance in Europe, 1925–1945. New York, 39–71.Google Scholar
Fowler, D. (1989), ‘First Thoughts on Closure: Problems and Prospects’, MD 22, 75–122.Google Scholar
Greene, E. (1995), ‘The Catullan Ego: Fragmentation and the Erotic Self’, AJPh 116.1, 77–93.Google Scholar
Greene, E. (1999), ‘Re-Figuring the Feminine Voice: Catullus Translating Sappho’, Arethusa 32.1, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffin, R. (1996), ‘Staging the Nation's Rebirth: The Politics and Aesthetics of Performance in the Context of Fascist Studies’, in Berghaus, G. (ed.), Fascism and Theatre: Comparative Studies on the Aesthetics and Politics of Performance in Europe, 1925–1945. New York, 11–29.Google Scholar
Heineman, E. (2002), ‘Sexuality and Nazism: The Doubly Unspeakable?’, Journal of the History of Sexuality 11.1/2, Special Issue: Sexuality and German Fascism, 22–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, W. R. (2009), A Latin Lover in Ancient Rome: Readings in Propertius and His Genre. Columbus.Google Scholar
Kater, M. H. (1997), The Twisted Muse: Musicians and Their Music in the Third Reich. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kühne, T. (2018), ‘Introduction: Masculinity and the Third Reich’, Central European History 51, 354–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, E. (1996), ‘Towards an Aesthetic of Fascist Opera’, in Berghaus, G. (ed.), Fascism and Theatre: Comparative Studies on the Aesthetics and Politics of Performance in Europe, 1925–1945. New York, 260–76.Google Scholar
Mosse, G. L. (1996), The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity. Studies in the History of Sexuality. Oxford.Google Scholar
Müller, U. (2015), ‘Carmina Amoris. Carl Orffs Trionfi: Carmina Burana, Catulli Carmina, Trionfo di Afrodite. Konzeption und literarische Vorlagen’, in Rösch, T. (ed.), Text, Musik, Szene – Das Musiktheater von Carl Orff. Symposium Orff-Zentrum München 2007. Mainz, 35–53.Google Scholar
Oade, S. (2017), ‘Catullus: Lyric Poet, Lyricist’, D.Phil Thesis, University of Oxford (monograph forthcoming, OUP).Google Scholar
Panse, B. (1996), ‘Censorship in Nazi Germany. The Influence of the Reich's Ministry of Propaganda on German Theatre and Drama, 1933–1945’, in Berghaus, G. (ed.), Fascism and Theatre: Comparative Studies on the Aesthetics and Politics of Performance in Europe, 1925–1945. New York, 140–56.Google Scholar
Potter, P. M. (2006), ‘What Is “Nazi Music”?’, The Musical Quarterly 88.3, 428–545.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potter, P. M. (2007), ‘Dismantling a Dystopia: On the Historiography of Music in the Third Reich’. Central European History 40.4, 623–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roche, H. (2018a), ‘“Distant Models”? Italian Fascism, National Socialism, and the Lure of the Classics’, in Roche, H. and Demetriou, K. N. (eds.), Brill's Companion to the Classics, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Leiden, 3–28.Google Scholar
Roche, H. (2018b), ‘Classics and Education in the Third Reich: Die Alten Sprachen and the Nazification of Latin- and Greek-Teaching in Secondary Schools’, in Roche, H. and Demetriou, K. N. (eds.), Brill's Companion to the Classics, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Leiden, 238–63.Google Scholar
Roche, H. and Demetriou, K. N. (eds.) (2018), Brill's Companion to the Classics, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Leiden.Google Scholar
Stachon, M. (2017), ‘Das elegische Distichon in Carl Orffs Sprechstück Copa Syrisca’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 74, 103–12.Google Scholar
Stachon, M. (2020), ‘Odious and Yet Lovely: Carl Orff's Scenic Cantata Catulli Carmina’, Anabases. Traditions et Réceptions de l'Antiquité 31, 11–23.Google Scholar
Strunz, F. (1990), ‘Catulli Carmina. Zur Interpretation der ludi scaenici Carl Orffs’, Der Altsprachliche Unterricht 33.4, 5–40.Google Scholar
Thomas, W. (1980), ‘Latein und Lateinisches im Musiktheater Carl Orffs’, Der Altsprachliche Unterricht 23.5, 29–52.Google Scholar
Thomas, W. (1990), Das Rad der Fortuna: Ausgewählte Aufsätze zu Werk und Wirkung Carl Orffs. Mainz.Google Scholar
Tregear, P. (1999), ‘Sounding Fascism: T. W. Adorno and the Political Susceptibility of Music’, Culture, Theory and Critique 42.1, 36–48.Google Scholar
Wildmann, D. (2018), ‘Desired Bodies: Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia, Aryan Masculinity and the Classical Body’, in Roche, H. and Demetriou, K. N. (eds.), Brill's Companion to the Classics, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Leiden, 60–81.Google Scholar