ABSTRACT
As grand operas became very popular in German theatres from the 1830s onwards, the operas were often subjected to significant processes of transformations and adaptations in order to become politically and artistically acceptable. This chapter describes and analyses the first performances of Gustave III as Die Ballnacht at the Weimar court theatre in 1836, a version marked by significant changes of the characters, setting, plot, and by the substitution of the original final scene by a newly composed happy ending by the Weimar music director J. N. Hummel. It thus investigates the mechanisms and functions of cultural transfer and theatrical censorship in a case study.
