Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Notes to the Reader
- List of Abbreviations
- Timeline of Modern Czech History
- 1 Introduction: Nationalism, Modernism, and the Social Responsibility of Art in Prague
- 2 Smetana, Hostinský, and the Aesthetic Debates of the Nineteenth Century
- 3 Legacies, Ideologies, and Responsibilities: The Polemics of the Pre-Independence Years (1900–1918)
- 4 “Archetypes Who Live, Rejoice, and Suffer”: Czech Opera in the Fin de Siècle
- 5 The Pathology of the New Society: Debates in the Early Years of the First Republic (1918–24)
- 6 Infinite Melody, Ruthless Polyphony: Czech Modernism in the Early Republic
- 7 “A Crisis of Modern Music or Audience?”: Changing Attitudes to Cultural and Stylistic Pluralism (1925–30)
- 8 “I Have Rent My Soul in Two”: Divergent Directions for Czech Opera in the Late 1920s
- 9 Heaven on Earth: Socialism, Jazz, and a New Aesthetic Focus (1930–38)
- 10 “A Sad Optimism, the Happiness of the Resigned”: Extremes of Operatic Expression in the 1930s
- 11 The Ideological Debates of Prague Within a European Context
- Appendix One Personalia
- Appendix Two Premieres and New Productions at the National Theater, 1900–1938
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
9 - Heaven on Earth: Socialism, Jazz, and a New Aesthetic Focus (1930–38)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Notes to the Reader
- List of Abbreviations
- Timeline of Modern Czech History
- 1 Introduction: Nationalism, Modernism, and the Social Responsibility of Art in Prague
- 2 Smetana, Hostinský, and the Aesthetic Debates of the Nineteenth Century
- 3 Legacies, Ideologies, and Responsibilities: The Polemics of the Pre-Independence Years (1900–1918)
- 4 “Archetypes Who Live, Rejoice, and Suffer”: Czech Opera in the Fin de Siècle
- 5 The Pathology of the New Society: Debates in the Early Years of the First Republic (1918–24)
- 6 Infinite Melody, Ruthless Polyphony: Czech Modernism in the Early Republic
- 7 “A Crisis of Modern Music or Audience?”: Changing Attitudes to Cultural and Stylistic Pluralism (1925–30)
- 8 “I Have Rent My Soul in Two”: Divergent Directions for Czech Opera in the Late 1920s
- 9 Heaven on Earth: Socialism, Jazz, and a New Aesthetic Focus (1930–38)
- 10 “A Sad Optimism, the Happiness of the Resigned”: Extremes of Operatic Expression in the 1930s
- 11 The Ideological Debates of Prague Within a European Context
- Appendix One Personalia
- Appendix Two Premieres and New Productions at the National Theater, 1900–1938
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In 1936, Jaroslav Ježek composed the music for a jazz revue entitled Nebe na zemi (Heaven on Earth) that was the smash hit of the Prague season. The title was an ironic statement on the political situation in the ailing First Republic as well as in the rest of Europe, particularly next door in the Third Reich. The political leanings of the revue's text were demonstrably socialist, although with a Western, prodemocratic focus and a growing sense of Czech nationalism. Ježek's score consisted of lively tangos, foxtrots, and other popular dances imported from America, as well as satirical, antifascist marches, all to the accompaniment of a jazz band based on that of Duke Ellington. The entire show, both musically and dramatically, was hailed as a significant contribution to Prague's avant-garde movement. That such a strange and wonderful amalgam of theatrical, musical, political, and social impulses should find place in a single work is indicative not only of the state of the Prague musical community in the 1930s, but also of the fundamental cosmopolitanism and awareness of its individual members as democracy was coming to a close.
The decade of the 1930s saw tremendous social, political, and economic changes throughout Europe, occasioned by the start of the Great Depression, the rise of Hitler in Germany and of offshoot fascisms in other states, the popularity of the socialist movement, and finally the total collapse of democracy and the start of the Second World War.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Opera and Ideology in PraguePolemics and Practice at the National Theater, 1900–1938, pp. 260 - 299Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2006