Start |
Eva-Maria Hagen |
Künstlerin |
Texte |
Termine |
Presse |
Kontakt |
Shop
zurück zum Portrait
Portrait
Eva-Maria Hagen, Actress and Singer
As a young woman Eva-Maria Hagen was already passionate, beautiful, and cheeky, adored by the public, viewed with distrust by GDR bigwigs, but much in demand as an actress and singer. She was the most popular actress with DEFA, the GDR film company, and also appeared on television in the other German state.
As a child Eva-Maria Hagen would never have imagined becoming an actor. She was born in Germany’s remote East, and spent her childhood in Eastern Pomerania. Despite all the upheavals of the war and what followed, even today she still enjoys looking back at that time as a little girl. She still has a romantic relationship with nature, and lovingly cares for her small country cottage in the Uckermark where she lives in the summer, painting or practicing new songs. Otherwise her home today is the Uhlenhorst district of Hamburg, close to the Alster.
Driven out of her "cold homeland" the other side of the Oder, Eva-Maria, her mother, and a brother ended up in the GDR. She came early to acting, and became known and popular as a rebellious teenager in her first DEFA film. After the breakdown of the marriage which brought daughter Nina, life changed fundamentally in 1965 when she fell in love with poet and singer Wolf Biermann, who had come from the West ten years previously and was already out of favour among the GDR leadership. Biermann himself spoke of having been smitten by the most beautiful blonde in the "Workers and Peasants State". The couple were young socialists and committed anti-fascists. Both wanted a better society than one afflicted by the war, need, anti-semitism, and threats to freedom they had experienced; and both used artistic means, words and music, in struggling against the stagnation and bureaucratization of Real Socialism in the GDR. That was a completely hopeless undertaking in the sixties and seventies. The Cold War kept both German states trapped in their alliances, and individuals like Biermann and Hagen could do hardly anything against communist party bosses in the East. Eva-Maria Hagen has published eloquent testimony to this politically militant yet touchingly beautiful love in a book entitled "Eva und der Wolf".
When the GDR deprived Biermann of citizenship in 1976 because of an appearance in the Federal Republic, Eva-Maria Hagen was devastated. She submitted to the ruling party’s request and applied for an exit visa, which was immediately granted for herself and her daughter. Nina quickly became known in the West as a Rock singer with a tomboyish talent and a splendid voice. Her mother had more difficulty in adapting to the other Germany.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification, Eva-Maria Hagen once again appears throughout Germany, sometimes alongside daughter Nina and grand-daughter Cosma who by now is starting to be a successful actress – a splendid, absolutely likeable, slightly crazy, highly talented, and productive female dynasty.
Anyone looking for love songs, political chansons, and musical poetry, beyond the hit parade and hopeless pop music with German texts, will inevitably come across Eva-Maria Hagen, who has nevertheless not neglected her acting in favour of a busy wandering existence as songstress. Her wide-ranging programme time and again include ballads by her former great love Wolf Biermann, songs by Bert Brecht, chansons by French poets, weighty Russian songs and delicate gypsy romances, Baltic folk songs, and Jewish airs. The range of her Compact Discs is correspondingly broad, but these are only available from the "2001" mail order company and on the internet (www.eva-maria-hagen.de).
A woman singer who used to be well-known in the GDR recently bewailed her lot to colleague Eva-Maria Hagen. After the political changeover in Germany she no longer knew which of her old songs she should still sing. Hagen jokingly offered some of hers: "I’m blessed with such a wealth of songs that I’m glad to give away a few".
Peter Laudan
Portrait
Eva-Maria Hagen, Actress and Singer
As a young woman Eva-Maria Hagen was already passionate, beautiful, and cheeky, adored by the public, viewed with distrust by GDR bigwigs, but much in demand as an actress and singer. She was the most popular actress with DEFA, the GDR film company, and also appeared on television in the other German state.
As a child Eva-Maria Hagen would never have imagined becoming an actor. She was born in Germany’s remote East, and spent her childhood in Eastern Pomerania. Despite all the upheavals of the war and what followed, even today she still enjoys looking back at that time as a little girl. She still has a romantic relationship with nature, and lovingly cares for her small country cottage in the Uckermark where she lives in the summer, painting or practicing new songs. Otherwise her home today is the Uhlenhorst district of Hamburg, close to the Alster.
Driven out of her "cold homeland" the other side of the Oder, Eva-Maria, her mother, and a brother ended up in the GDR. She came early to acting, and became known and popular as a rebellious teenager in her first DEFA film. After the breakdown of the marriage which brought daughter Nina, life changed fundamentally in 1965 when she fell in love with poet and singer Wolf Biermann, who had come from the West ten years previously and was already out of favour among the GDR leadership. Biermann himself spoke of having been smitten by the most beautiful blonde in the "Workers and Peasants State". The couple were young socialists and committed anti-fascists. Both wanted a better society than one afflicted by the war, need, anti-semitism, and threats to freedom they had experienced; and both used artistic means, words and music, in struggling against the stagnation and bureaucratization of Real Socialism in the GDR. That was a completely hopeless undertaking in the sixties and seventies. The Cold War kept both German states trapped in their alliances, and individuals like Biermann and Hagen could do hardly anything against communist party bosses in the East. Eva-Maria Hagen has published eloquent testimony to this politically militant yet touchingly beautiful love in a book entitled "Eva und der Wolf".
When the GDR deprived Biermann of citizenship in 1976 because of an appearance in the Federal Republic, Eva-Maria Hagen was devastated. She submitted to the ruling party’s request and applied for an exit visa, which was immediately granted for herself and her daughter. Nina quickly became known in the West as a Rock singer with a tomboyish talent and a splendid voice. Her mother had more difficulty in adapting to the other Germany.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification, Eva-Maria Hagen once again appears throughout Germany, sometimes alongside daughter Nina and grand-daughter Cosma who by now is starting to be a successful actress – a splendid, absolutely likeable, slightly crazy, highly talented, and productive female dynasty.
Anyone looking for love songs, political chansons, and musical poetry, beyond the hit parade and hopeless pop music with German texts, will inevitably come across Eva-Maria Hagen, who has nevertheless not neglected her acting in favour of a busy wandering existence as songstress. Her wide-ranging programme time and again include ballads by her former great love Wolf Biermann, songs by Bert Brecht, chansons by French poets, weighty Russian songs and delicate gypsy romances, Baltic folk songs, and Jewish airs. The range of her Compact Discs is correspondingly broad, but these are only available from the "2001" mail order company and on the internet (www.eva-maria-hagen.de).
A woman singer who used to be well-known in the GDR recently bewailed her lot to colleague Eva-Maria Hagen. After the political changeover in Germany she no longer knew which of her old songs she should still sing. Hagen jokingly offered some of hers: "I’m blessed with such a wealth of songs that I’m glad to give away a few".
Peter Laudan
 |
Hagen-Promotion – Papenhuder-Str. 16 – 22087 – Hamburg – Deutschland |