Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor (1950) - film adaptation of Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Ronan Paterson (University of Teesside)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Adapted from Otto Nicolai’s singspiel (a genre of opera combining music with spoken word)

Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor

(1849), German libretto by Salomon Hermann Mosenthal, and William Shakespeare’s

The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Directed by Georg Wildhagen. Screenplay by Georg Wildhagen and Wolff von Gordon. Cast includes Sonia Ziemann, Camilla Spira, Paul Esser, Ina Halley, and Eckart Dux. German. Black and white. 96 minutes.

Die Lustigen Weiber is the first sound film based on a Shakespeare play to be made in the so-called Soviet Bloc. From 1945 Germany was occupied by the Allied Powers, the eastern part of the country being within the Russian zone. The German film industry, prolific up to and including the Nazi period, no longer existed. The Russian zone contained the

971 words

Citation: Paterson, Ronan. "Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor (1950) - film adaptation of Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 September 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19423, accessed 28 March 2024.]

19423 Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor (1950) - film adaptation of Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.