ABSTRACT
In a new production of Lehár's 1927 operetta Der Zarewitsch at the Staatsoperette Dresden in 2014, the director Robert Lehmeier had not only set the piece in Vladimir Putin's Russia but had also decided that the protagonist Aljoscha, the son of the Russian ruler, was to be depicted as ‘not secretly but openly’ gay. When the young Aljoscha is forced to assume the position of Tsar at the end of the piece, Lehmeier has him turn his back not only on the dancing girl with whom he has developed a platonic relationship, but also on his sexuality.
This chapter argues that such a binary approach to gender and sexuality offers too restricted a perspective. Through a close examination of Sonia's aria of romantic longing, ‘Einer wird kommen’ and the Tauberlied of melancholic solitude, the ‘Volgalied’, I explore the extent to which the musical ambiguities suggested by the score resonated with a broader ambiguity of sexual politics in Berlin at this time, as illustrated by the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft and by key cultural figures, such as Marlene Dietrich, who offered an image of gender that was not only ambiguous but also seemed to offer an embodiment of what Hirschfeld termed ‘the third sex’. This chapter explores the extent to which Der Zarewitsch fell into this tradition and how it resonated with such a culture of sexual ambiguity. The topic is approached from two perspectives. First, I consider the significance of Sonia as a personification of the masculine woman in Weimar culture; secondly, I examine the figure of the Zarewitsch himself— a character whose aversion to women and life of solitude has led to the assumption today of his repressed homosexuality. Additionally, the chapter would address how the figure of Tauber in the portrayal of this role has, in itself, brought about a degree of ambiguity in the portrayal of sexuality.
