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Régeny, whose operas in some way corresponded to Nazi ideology
but could also be interpreted as including critical remarks. Richard
Strauss, the most prolific German composer alive at the time, was a
special case. He lent his glamour to the Nazis and was accused of
having been a willing accomplice of cultural politics. His works,
however, do not support such a conclusion and even his most pro-
Nazi work, Day of �reedom (�riedenstag, 1938), was ambiguous. While
Hans Pfitzner, on the other hand, engaged actively in polemics and
was seen by many as the Third Reich’s prime musical exponent, he
had stopped composing operas two years before the Nazis came to
power. In a remarkable and perceptive conclusion Levi places his
findings into a European context and points out that developments in
Germany were not unique. Many opera houses in the Western
democracies also rejected modernism and became increasingly conservative
in their selection of repertoire.
The performance of non-German works was not confined to
opera. On the contrary, the production of non-German drama was
even endorsed by Nazi officials, as John London points out. But
although the Nazis emphasized the importance of foreign drama it
was a hypocritical claim as the share of non-German drama in the
repertoire fell considerably after 1933. The choice of the ‘right’ plays
became essential and placed Italian drama at the top of the agenda.
Rather than artistic quality or originality, the political background of
the dramatists became the important criterion. Pirandello, for example,
was banned, but Mussolini’s dramatic efforts were widely recognized.
The classical Spanish theatre experienced a revival,
although plays like Calderon’s The Great Theatre of the World were
adapted or re-translated in order to make them compatible with Nazi
ideology. Apart from Italian and Spanish drama, the Greek classics
and Scandinavian authors featured prominently, whereas �rench
drama was avoided. British comedies played a significant role until
the outbreak of the war, when all English drama was banned.
Although attacked by the Rosenberg circle, Shaw remained in the
repertoire until the end of the war, but productions of Shaw and
Shakespeare required special permission from 1941. Goebbels conveniently
classed Shaw as Irish, and, therefore, anti-English, in order to
keep his popular plays in the repertoire. Shakespeare, on the other
hand, had always been prominent in German repertoires. He was,
after all, regarded as part of the German cultural heritage, and inter-
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