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Urban Opera: Navigating Modernity through the Oeuvre of Strauss and Hofmannsthal
[electronic resource].

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Main Author
Heinz, Solveig M.
Related Names
University of Michigan. Library.
Language(s)
English
Published
2013.
Subjects
Opera.
Cultural History.
Richard Strauss.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
Sound Studies.
Summary
dissertation contributes significantly to interdisciplinary scholarship in literary, musicological and sound studies. Hofmannsthal’s long-ignored libretti reveal how the poet saw a remedy to his Sprachskepsis (the insufficiency of language) in sound, and more specifically in the concept of tone (in poetry and the voice). The dissertation further presents a critical intervention in modernity studies by establishing the operas as a part of the modernist canon. Finally, this dissertation constructs a new story line of sound and listening in the history of German and Austrian modern culture.
complex sound system to stage characteristically modern sounds and acoustic situations, to explore new modes of listening, and to reflect on the socio-political, cultural, and techno-scientific changes that the many novel sounds of modernity represented. Each chapter features a prominent sonic dimension: the homogeneous ambient sound of the city; urban noise; women’s heightened acoustic presence in public life; and new audio technologies. Analyses draw on opera’s musical, poetic, and dramatic material as well as on dramaturgic directions and the correspondence between the two artists. The literary and musical canon, and incidental commentary produced by contemporary political activists, music critics, journalists, and ordinary residents of Vienna, Munich, and Berlin provide further source material. Working with the score and libretto from their operas, and reading them against their cultural-historical backdrop, this
The aural experience of modernity has in large part remained in the shadow of visuality studies in scholarship on Austro-German urban culture of the early twentieth century. This dissertation argues that rapid and radical transformations in urban soundscapes at the turn of the century fostered a notable sonic sensibility among residents. City dwellers across classes, gender, and professions frequently commented on their acoustic environments, and intellectuals and artists found aesthetic and critical inspiration in myriad soundscapes. This study identifies the collaborative operas of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal as a particularly rich and multi-faceted manifestation of this cultural-historical phenomenon, and examines a specifically modern sonic sensibility through their oeuvre. The dissertation argues that Strauss and Hofmannsthal engaged opera’s
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