‘WER ICH BIN, ERFÄHRST DU NICHT!’: TRANSFORMATIONS OF DON JUAN AND DON GIOVANNI IN EAST GERMAN MEDIA

Abstract The figure of Don Juan/Don Giovanni provided directors working across a range of media in the GDR with an opportunity to appropriate canonical literary models and shape them in accordance with the needs of the fledgling socialist state. The Berliner Ensemble's 1952/54 adaptation of Molière's Dom Juan and Walter Felsenstein's 1966 production of Mozart's Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni for the Komische Oper reflect two diametrically opposed dramaturgical approaches to the problems of class and gender embodied in the material. The challenges inherent in bringing opera to a wider audience and the attempt to reimagine the female protagonists for contemporary East German audiences lie at the heart of Siegfried Kühn's 1980 film Don Juan — Karl‐Liebknecht‐Str. 78 .