Christoph Muth
| Fachbereich | Art History, Musicology and Dance Studies |
| Hauptbetreuer | Univ.-Prof. Dr. Nils Grosch |
| Nebenbetreuer | Univ.-Prof. Dr. Matthias Weiss |
| Beginn | SS 20 |
| Kontakt | |
| Thema der Dissertation | Georg Kirstas strategische Identitätskonstruktion, als Grundlage des Überlebens in den jeweiligen Exilen sowie der erfolgreichen Etablierung am Londoner Westend Attribute der Emigration, kultureller Interaktion und politischen Engagements in den Arbeiten von 1937–1955 |
Abstract
Born in Kharkiv in 1900 or 1901, Georg Kirsta (1900/1901–1955) came to the theatre at an early age as a visual artist. His life was marked by flight and expulsion; subsequent stages of his career included Vienna, Berlin and London, where he worked as a stage and costume designer, director and producer. He died in exile in London in 1955. His first work in British exile was likely in 1937, when he designed the sets and costumes for La Bien-Aimée (1928) in Bronislava Nijinska’s (1892–1972) production for the Markova-Dolin Ballet.1 A central question of this study was therefore to what extent Kirsta’s theatrical work in exile in England shows hints of flight, expulsion, mobility and political engagement. The investigation was guided by three approaches: First, a historical-analytical inquiry into reception practices, production conditions, theatre and performance structures, and trends in stage design in the first half of the twentieth century was examined. Jacqueline Bratton’s Acts of Supremacy: The British Empire and the Stage (1991) served a basis (1). Second, primary research constituted a crucial component of the observation. Based on sources such as drafts, announcements, programme notes and reviews from Kirsta’s estate, as well as digitised materials from databases such as Archives Hub, this dissertation documents, analyses and deciphers his work (2).2 Third, the study was informed by theoretical and methodological interprets from interdisciplinary migration research, including the mobility paradigms described by Wolfgang Gratzer, Nils Grosch, Ulrike Präger and Susanne Scheiblhofer in Music and Migration: a Theory and Methodology Handbook (2024) (3). The case studies focus on Kirsta’s productions of Darius Milhaud’s (1892–1974) La Bien-Aimée, Jacques Offenbach’s (1819–1880) Les Contes d’Hoffmann (1881), Modest Mussorgsky’s (1839–1881) Sorotschinskaja jarmarka (1881) and Lennox Berkeley’s (1903–1989) The Lovers’ Gallery (1947).
1) Bronislava Nijinska choreographed the ballet performance for the Ida Rubinstein Company in 1928. See »Costume Design for Female Galop Figure in the Carnaval«, Victoria & Albert Museum.
2) See »Kirsta«, Archives Hub, https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/?terms=kirsta, accessed on 17 July 2022.
© Christoph Muth
