Titel	Jonny spielt auf (opera)
Labels
ID	7701
Type	jazz opera
Date	1927

Collection(s)	manually created entity Polarization in the North Atlantic Triangle
Uri(s)	https://ica.acdh-dev.oeaw.ac.at/entity/7701/
Notes	Krenek was not familiar with real jazz at the time of writing this opera, resulting in a very stereotypical representation of American values and accomplishments (see Steinert, 157 in Krick-Aigner). At the premiere in Munich, Nazi sympathisers disrupted the performance as noted in a review (see Niedermayer 1928). Already in 1927 the antisemitic newspaper "Allgemeine Musikzeitung" had written about the opera's alleged corruptedness. The negative critique and the National Socialist's censoring of the opera forced Krenek to flee to the US in 1938 (the year in which it was shown as a "degenerate" example of music at the Entartete Musik (degenerate music) exhibition in Düsseldorf. The main character of this opera is an African American jazz fiddler who was played by a white actor wearing blackface. While the opera has received considerable due to this fact, restitutional musicologies try to emphasise the radical aspect of the play, namely the mere focus on jazz and presence of a Black character who interacts normally with white women in the play in times when National Socialists were already gaining momentum. The opera was translated into 18 languages and performed in 42 opera houses in Europe and the US.
References	Krick-Aigner, Kirsten. "An Examination of Jazz and Identity and Blackness in Ernst Krenek’s 1927 Opera Jonny spielt auf and Bettina Ehrlich-Bauer’s 1928 Still Life Jonny spielt auf." Polarization in the North Atlantic Triangle. Vienna: Verlag der ÖAW, 2023. See also Steinert, Heinz “Adorno and the Case of Jazz in Europe in the 1930s.”Jazz in German-Language Literature, edited by Kirsten Krick-Aigner and Marc-Oliver Schuster, Königshausen & Neumann, 2013, pp. 149-162. See also Fincha, Wolfgang. “Die Überfahrt Beginnt”: Schwarze Körper und Amerikanismus in Ernst Kreneks Zeitoper Jonny spielt auf.” Leibhaftige Moderne. Körper in Kunst und Massenmedien 1918 bis 1933. Eds. Michael Cowan and Kai Marcel Sicks. Transcript Verlag, 2005; Niedermeyer. “’Jonny’ entfesselt Skandal in München.” Der Artist 2221, 14 July 1928. Translated by Jeff Bowersox. https://blackcentraleurope.com/sources/1914-1945/nazis-connect-jonny-spielt-auf-to-the-black-shame-1928/. Accessed 7 Nov. 2021.