About the work
Bretter, die die Welt bedeuten (Boards That Mean the World) is a musical by East German composer Gerhard Kneifel with a book by Helmut Bez and Jürgen Degenhardt. It premiered on 24 April 1970 at the Metropol-Theater Berlin. It is based on the farce "Der Raub der Sabinerinnen" (The Rape of the Sabine Women) by Franz and Paul von Schönthan.
Plot
Theatre director Striese tours the German provinces around 1900 with his chaotic troupe of actors and comes across the manuscript of an opera that school principal Gollwitz keeps hidden for fear of his strict wife. A seductive diva eventually persuades Gollwitz to allow its premiere, bringing ragtime and popular-song sounds into the sedate small town.
Cultural significance
The work ranks among the most successful pieces of East Germany's light musical theatre and is still performed on German-language stages today, including at the Musikalische Komödie Leipzig and the Komische Oper Berlin.