Die Frau des Generals

Between 2016 and 2022, Claudia Reuter and Frank Schumann met regularly for discussions. She came from a respected medical family in Dresden and was married to Rolf Reuter for nearly four decades, who worked as the General Music Director of the Komische Oper in Berlin, among other roles. The recordings not only provide insight into a widely branched artistic family, whose roots extend from the Swiss Alps through Saxon Switzerland to the Caucasus, but they also illustrate how people in East Germany lived and thought, and, above all, how they interacted with one another. The exchange of ideas—what was not foreseeable—offers ample material for the current debate about East Germany, initiated by Dirk Oschmann and Katja Hoyer.