Academic interests
As a Completion Grant Fellow at the University of Oslo, I specialise in researching popular musical theatre in Sweden, Germany, and Austria in the first half of the 20th century. I am particularly interested in transnational connections within popular culture and the workings of the entertainment industries at times of political crisis.
In my dissertation, I examined how the actor and cabaret artist Max Hansen transferred popular musical theatre to Stockholm in the 1930s and 1940s. The study of these operettas focuses on four main issues: Max Hansen’s biography leading him to Stockholm, his reception while becoming a central protagonist of operetta in Sweden, the adaptation strategies of initially German-language operettas for stagings in Stockholm, and the transfer of operettas beyond the theatre stages in Sweden.
The leading research question that runs through all these aspects is what influence Max Hansen had on the transfer, performance practice, and reception of operettas to and in Stockholm. The Swedish translation of "Bezauberndes Fräulein" in 1935 is his first appearance in an operetta in Stockholm, and his staging of "Im weißen Rössl" in Swedish language in 1948 marks the endpoint of this research. The study traces operetta production during a period of vast historical and political changes: It includes the time of the Third Reich, Austria’s Anschluss, the Second World War, and the early aftermath of Nazi-Germany’s defeat.
Education
- PhD in Musicology, University of Oslo (2026)
- MA in Musicology, University of Vienna (2019)
- BA in Art History, Media Studies, and Musicology, Marburg University (2016)
Beyond Academia
Besides my scientific research, I worked with major European music festivals such as Lucerne Festival and Grafenegg Festival, furthermore at the Vienna Volksoper, the publisher Schott Music, and Klassik Radio in Hamburg.