The Importance of Opera for German Studies

Home , Die Nacht (Strauss), Erdgeist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Mefistofele

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By Using the Example of the Santa Fe Opera for the Academic German Summer School of New Mexico

By Peter Pabisch, University of New Mexico

In our quest for providing suggestions of how to meet the worldwide crisis in “Germanistik” or “German Studies” the given topic might lend itself as one alternative in subject matter and method to meet the challenge. Especially in the international realm of “German Studies” it has been a necessity for several decades, to interest students in the field of German via some attractive feature in the cultural realm. Not only in the United States, but in many other countries students are not confronted with German as a foreign language until they enter university. At best they start their study of the foreign language at senior high school, thus in their teens. There may be statistics and questionnaires describ- ing what made them choose German as a subject in the end, but even without them it can be surmised that a certain percentage of students enter this field because of some family relations, otherwise a subject matter may lure them into this realm of learning. Quite often they have seen a German play, even more likely a film, or visited a museum where a German painter was exhibited in whom they are interested – and all this may be connected with a visit to Germany or to Europe, more generally. In this vein of international travel a student in German may stay at a foreign school for a semester or even a year – and his / her interest might be awoken in this personal connection. Whatever the reason, it has been clear for a long time that special methods and proper attractions are required to alert students to the wealth and depth of a field such as German language and literature; opera may be this type of a vehicle to win students over. In the 1970s American pedagogues in the field of German introduced culture as a third pillar to the two other traditional pillars of language and literature. This cultural option was also adopted by other fields, such as other foreign languages or new ‘studies’ options from gender to cultural studies. Culture as a subject meant that students could be taught about foreign affairs in their own native language, i. e. in the United States in English, so that a large population of students could be reached. In German such options chosen by the students entailed their interest in the Third Reich, the holocaust, the German Jewish question, even in the Weimar Republic and its failure. Yet also

51 the study of fairy tales as introduced by the brothers Grimm and altered, yet popularized by Walt Disney, count to this introductory realm of interest. Other independent fields with a certain German predominance are philosophy from Immanuel Kant to Martin Heidegger as the major cornerstones of expertise, let alone the natural and other sciences. Whereas philosophy is still taught via its German representatives and originators, albeit in English translation, the sciences have been taken over by the Americans themselves in a progress also known as Americanization since the 1980s, when a new American generation replaced its often immigrant native German and German-Jewish teachers. Only in interdisciplinary discourse in the sciences and other fields such as the social sciences or education, German matters still tend to be considered. One huge field in the United States is found in classical music, including the ‘Lied’ and opera, and the richness of German contributions in this direction remains overwhelming. Besides great schools of music from Rochester to the Julliard School of the Performing Arts each large university can point to an impressive music program of its own. Among the particular subfields from composition to single instruments to smaller and larger music groupings, opera has a favored spot in many music(ological) schools of higher learning. From here great talent has been extracted on either side of the Atlantic, especially in the twentieth century, beginning with Gustav Mahler as director of the Metropolitan Opera in the last few years of his short life. Whereas for many years European talent was brought to the U.S.A., after World War II American talent trained in America has been hired in Europe increasingly. It has been in this advanced encounter of the respective cultures that the traditional field of “Germanistik“ found a haven in America. Not only do opera students, especially singers, need to study German at an advanced level, but from all the other fields already mentioned, students enter this field to perfect their knowledge in culture, history and literary connections. This need created “German Studies” that has turned out to be much more versatile and attractive by its interdisciplinary spread in the United States. Even quite a few native German or Austrian students on research and study years in the United States of America can catch fire and finish their master or doctoral degrees in the States, if they are offered an opportunity to do so. Whereas in Germany traditional methods of confrontational teaching prevail – caused by lectures and, more derogatively, by seminars with all too large audiences and no opportunity to discuss matters because of it. In North America, to the contrary, the once very modern ways of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s early nineteenth century educational reforms in Berlin have become the norm – at least on the upper level of the undergraduate and on the graduate level of studies. Here seminars must not exceed twenty to twenty five students and academic teachers can afford time for their students also to

52 address their concerns, wishes and criticism – even on a personal level. What is more, students are allowed to choose their own subject matter for their thesis or dissertation and do not have to bow to the dictate of their professor, as has been the case at many, yet fortunately not all places of higher learning in Germany and other traditional European countries. Students may opt for combinations of fields in the USA – German(istik) being a major, yet any reasonable other field being minor options of in-depth studies. Therefore dissertation topics prosper in a plethora of combinations that have entered Europe slowly over the last three decades, although in no overwhelming speed, which may cause one reason for the present crisis in this field in Germany. The fact that students of Germanistik in German speaking countries do not have to be introduced to the language has been a proposition in kind that the traditional treatment of the subject of Germanistik would suffice as is, also sustained by the reality that too many students wanted to enter this study, and strict elimination was a sad consequence, which also meant that teachers did not have to care for retaining so many students. As a result an alienation process between students and teachers was observed at many German universities. Thus at the threshold of the ruling computer age and new ways of communication the field of Germanistik discovers itself at a loss of new ideas – and the student revolt of the sixties (1960s) has not brought the categorical change that was instigated by this earlier however explosive uproar. It would be unfair and even wrong to claim that the United States has found the answer to all related problems without any difficulties, yet certain types of methods have shown unique success, one of which the total immersion seminar type with its extraordinary, demonstrable results through objective testing in the advanced use of the language and in the subject matter of German Studies at the conclusion of these courses. This type of academic school is connected with the main campus of universities and offers its programs in the given language exclusively “24 hours a day” in total immersion in some remote location for four to six intensive weeks. Certain honor codes guarantee that students abide by the ruling of ‘German only’. Among the half a dozen schools of this nature in the United States the 36 year old German Summer School of New Mexico1 has adopted the proven methods of older models (Middlebury, Vermont; Yale; Portland, Oregon), yet has broadened its program from the traditional language and literature approach to almost fifty fields over the years, in combination with the main subject “Germanistik”. In addition, an atmosphere between students and teachers is adhered to that was characterized once by the Austrian artist

1 Founded at Taos Ski Valley near Santa Fe in 1975/76 by German professors George F. Peters and Peter Pabisch for the German Program of the University of New Mexico.

53 and filmmaker Harald Friedl who taught there one summer, obviously under most favorable terms. They reflect the positive reply by everybody whoever evaluated this new type of school; an excerpt of his letter states:

Besonders geschätzt habe ich, dass die Deutsche Sommerschule mehr ist als ein intensiver Sprachkurs. Sicher, das hohe Niveau des Unterrichts, das große Enga- gement der Lehrenden und die individuelle Betreuung der Studentinnen und Studenten sind Kern des Programms. Darüber hinaus ist die Deutsche Sommer- schule aber auch praktizierte humanistische Lebenskultur. Unterschiedliche Men- schen kommen zusammen, um gemeinsam zu arbeiten. Deutsch ist nicht nur die Unterrichtssprache, sondern auch die Sprache der alltäglichen Interaktion. LehrerInnen und StudentInnen teilen den Alltag, die Auseinandersetzung mit der deutschen Sprache erstreckt sich also von Früh bis in die Nacht. Umfassender kann eine Lernerfahrung gar nicht sein, weil sich der Spracherwerb mit Alltags- situationen verbündet, beziehungsweise aus ihnen heraus entsteht. In Taos wird Bildung nicht abgehoben vermittelt, sondern Lernerfahrung als Teil des Lebens geboten. Daneben wird die außerordentliche Schönheit der Region Taos, das Nebeneinander von Wüsten- und Berglandschaften schier nebensächlich. Die Gefühle, die ich hatte, als die Schule für mich zu Ende war, sind mir noch immer in lebhafter Erinnerung. Tatsächlich: Ich wollte nicht wegfahren, sondern länger Teil dieser wundervollen Prozesse sein.

[I appreciated especially that the German Summer School was more than an intensive language course. No question, the high level of teaching, the intensive engagement of the teachers and the individual treatment of female and male students are at the center of the program. More than that though, the German Summer School also represents humanistic life culture put into practice. Different people meet one another, in order to work together. German is not only the language of teaching, but also the language of daily interaction. Teachers and students share everyday life, the German language is thus dealt with from morning to night. The learning experience could not be more wide-ranging,

because the language acquisition is united with the daily situations, i. e. it is offered as part of them. Education is not a separate matter in Taos. In addition, the extraordinary beauty of the region around the program in Taos, the existence of desert and mountain scenery next to one another became less important. I recall vividly the feelings I had when the school had ended for me. As a matter of fact: I did not want to leave, but wanted to continue more and be part of these wonderful processes.]2

2 Translated by Peter Pabisch – from: Harald Friedl. “Brief [Letter]”. In: Peter Pabisch, Ed. Going on Thirty Years: The German Summer School of New Mexico: Founded during the academic year 1975/76: Three decades in the service of German Studies: A Report. [= 30 Years]. University of South Dakota: Verlag Schatzkammer, 2002, p. 27.

54 II

In this experience the visit of the Santa Fe Opera represents one of the cultural climaxes as a one-time event during the almost five-week course. In the following discourse reasons are disclosed what opera means to the curriculum of this particular school and how it fulfills a prime purpose of making foreign students understand how it embraces German education in a fundamental way. In the final segment (III) of this essay though, further possibilities will be offered how opera should be more an integral part of the teaching of

Germanistik / German Studies in an across-the-board way. From Taos Ski Valley, the location of the German Summer School, it takes two and a half hours each way to drive to the Santa Fe Opera and back. Since the performances do not start until nine o’clock in the evening and last often until after midnight, the bus returns to Taos Ski Valley not before 2:30 to three o’clock the next morning. To get to the opera the visitors also have to leave the school in the late afternoon, in order to pay the city of Santa Fe, founded in 1610 by the Spanish Habsburgs as their most northern administra- tive center in Latin America, a quick visit at first. Upon arrival at the opera house, some twenty minutes by car to the north of the city, the group may join the popular tail gating, where people sit at the open back end of their cars and enjoy a picnic dinner. This social phenomenon at the opera has become a tradition over the past half a century, thus it introduces the newcomer, as most of the school’s students are, to the popularity of opera visits on either side of the Atlantic. Going to the opera has something festive about it – before, during and even after the performance. Furthermore Germans do not so much insist on seeing a German opera, but on experiencing the atmosphere of an opera visit. In fact, many Italian and French operas – from Puccini’s La Bohéme or Madame Butterfly to Bizét’s Carmen – are as popular. Nonetheless, in Santa Fe the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss have been performed most often, followed closely by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini, Gioacchino Rossini or Georges Bizet3. Consequently the German Summer School never insists on hearing a German opera, but likes to demonstrate the interest of a German-European audience for any kind of opera, an interest shared in Santa Fe and its large region with the American audience, of course. The actual interest in offering opera lies in the connection of score and libretto and thus of composer and librettist / author. Days before the performance special lectures are offered at the school to point out the sources for the

3 In 54 annual summer seasons – between 1957 and 2010, a Mozart opera has been on the program 52 times, followed by Richard Strauss 41 times, Puccini 31, Verdi 22, Stravinsky 20 and Rossini 13 times. This means that works of these six composers make up

for 59 % of all program offerings in 179 times. Being on the program means to be staged several times each summer.

55 text of an opera, especially when it derives from a German author. It varies from year to year whether an opera is lending itself to this comparison with a German text base or not. Whenever it happens the work is discussed more deeply during a one time lecture or even within a special seminar. In the case of the summer of 2010 Mozart’s Magic Flute could be visited by the school. What a joy, as it is the second most often performed opera in Santa Fe after Mozart’s Così fan tutte. Whereas the latter was written in Italian by Lorenzo da Ponte, an interesting figure by itself to be discussed as well, Die Zauberflöte had the versatile Viennese author and artist Emanuel Schikaneder as its text creator. As is well known, the collaboration between Mozart and Schikaneder was so triumphant that the opera may well be the most often performed in the world. Even Johann Wolfgang Goethe had it performed almost a hundred times in Weimar where he was artistic director of the theater about a quarter of a century. To meet the beauty of the text the Santa Fe Opera, under the direction of Tim Albery4, staged this very opera with musical parts sung in German and the spoken dialogues recited in English. This opera house has always tried to offer its operas in the original languages, except for very popular ones, such as operettas as Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus or by Jacques Offenbach and Franz Lehar, which are produced in English. This experience alone provides a further educational moment for American students that world culture is offered in other languages than English as well, something not all American students are aware of from the onset of their studies. The recently renovated opera house provides, by the way, electrically lit texts in front of one’s seat with English and Spanish translations; as do many other houses in their respective main languages worldwide nowadays. The visit in Santa Fe stresses the multiple possibilities in showing students the lifelong effect it can have to one’s appreciation of living culture and not just receiving it through books or the media. Each evaluation session at the end of the summer school has proven the high praise students have for this one event alone. So this denotes one aspect of the opera experience, to introduce a general predilection for this art form by many Germans, Austrians and other Europeans. Occasionally even social and political occurrences and trends can be projected within the German world, whereby opera is favored by mainly bourgeois/middle class circles of society, especially before World War II. Adolf Hitler’s admiration of Wagner operas maneuvered German culture into unwanted political aspects that took some time to be separated from this affiliation after the war. Obviously the themes of scholarly papers concerning this interdisciplinary historical fact are abundant and find some reflection in the German Summer School’s curriculum during certain years. Indeed a

4 Tim Albery comes from Hertfordshire, England, and is one of the many international artists at the Santa Fe Opera. He also wrote the English spoken dialogues for this performance in 2010.

56 separate seminar on “Richard Wagners RING” was offered once in 1987 by Hubertus von Morr.5 Regrettably the Santa Fe Opera stays away from Wagner operas – only The Flying Dutchman was on the program in Santa Fe for three summers overall; tapes and films made up for this shortcoming at the German Summer School itself. John Crosby, the Santa Fe Opera’s founder and artistic director of four decades, yet deceased since the year 2002, justified to me the lack of Wagner operas in Santa Fe in an interview by stating:

You had here in the West some very successful productions of Wagner operas, in Seattle for example, almost every summer. And in San Francisco you had a Wagner festival every three or four years in June for a while. So with all this activity going on, it didn’t necessarily seem to us that this was a repertoire that we should move into at this moment. But […], I don’t think that’s a situation that is going to stay forever and that it might change.6

Over the years many operas of the well known world repertoire were visited by students from Taos Ski Valley and thus the purpose was met to instill an enthusiasm in the opera culture for most of them. In preparation for their visits their attention had been drawn to the inexpensive standing room tickets, a tradition taken over from Europe, e. g. from the Vienna State Opera. There young opera visitors spend a whole night and the next day standing or, at times, lying on field beds or just blankets on the sidewalk in front of the opera house in line waiting for the opportunity to buy a standing room ticket. This opera cult leaves a deep impression on American students who learn to understand it, no doubt, after their own visit to Santa Fe, albeit in comfortable seats and with no worries for buying a ticket.

In connection with German Studies / Germanistik at the Summer School what are the main operas used in the curriculum of the school to illuminate the closeness of music and literature in this genre? Once more, not every summer has whole seminars dedicated to this combined deliberation. Yet when it happens then the opera may become the center of conversation within and outside the classroom for days, even weeks – and in “German only!”. Even though no actual seminar was ever held to concentrate on a specific pair of composer and librettist, opera was built into the syllabus of certain seminars, 7 e. g. on Hugo von Hofmannsthal, offered by Professor Ruth Lorbe .

5 Ambassador Hubertus von Morr, then Consul at the German Consulate General in Houston, and later ambassador at various posts for the Ferderal Republic of Germany, dedicated his vacation to teaching in Taos Ski Valley. 6 Interview “The Santa Fe Opera” with John Crosby, founding director of the Santa Fe Opera, October 1998, by Peter Pabisch in: Going on Thirty Years, (2002), 72–73. 7 She worked at the GSSch repeatedly and one of her expert seminars were on Hugp von Hofmannsthal, for example in 1982. Ruth Lorbe is now emerita professor and lives in Urbana-Champaign near her University of Illinois.

57 Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal collaborated, as is well known, for almost twenty five years until the untimely death of the librettist in 1929. Richard Strauss had accepted his librettist as an equal, which is not always the case from the point of view of the composer. Thus Richard Strauss agreed to Hofmannsthal’s texts by the letter – even with the last opera Arabella (1933) that was performed after Hofmannsthal’s departure. Together they created the following works: Arabella, Die aegyptische Helena, Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten, the most successful opera Der Rosen- kavalier, and at the beginning of their collaboration Elektra (Dresden, 1909)8. In connection with the fairy tale topic that has gained popularity in German literature studies, Hofmannsthal’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, an empress who lost her shadow when she got married, can serve as an example. If she cannot find it her husband, the emperor, will be turned into stone. A poor family agrees to barter in exchange for treasure by selling the wife’s shadow. The empress refuses to accept this deal in the end, so as to spare the poor family a similar fate. In turn the spirits give back to her the lost shadow as a reward, after all. Hofmannthal’s literature is plentiful with similar romantic stories – and the inclusion of one of these librettos with opera can enhance interest in the author as it has done in Taos. Der Rosenkavalier, labeled as a ‘comedy for music’, has a light touch and borrows ideas from operettas à la Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus and from the entertaining operas by Mozart. It has become one of the most favored works by the audience and was performed in Santa Fe during several summer seasons. With it the entire era of Rococo and 18th century European culture with its changes to Napoleon’s era can be illumi- nated and characterized in concert with this opera, drawing from the fruitful literary era of beginning German literature as a world playing movement. Hofmannsthal’s distinguished support of language and literature also leads to his achievement of bringing Georg Buechner’s work Woyzeck that is better known nowadays by its slightly changed title to Wozzeck, onto the stage in Munich 1913. Alban Berg wrote the music to this early naturalistic play written long before the era of naturalism in German literature and sensational in its razor sharp deliberation by the author, a medical student who died very young. The Santa Fe Opera performed the opera once in 1966, but will bring it again in 2011. Last summer (2010) Georg Buechner was offered at the German Summer School in a seminar with anticipation for next year’s opera version. Likewise, some years ago, Frank Wedekind’s short plays Büchse der Pandora and Erdgeist were amalgamated into Alban Berg’s unfinished opera Lulu that has been shown in the finished two acts for three summers, and even one

8 Most details on opera are gathered here from Encyclopedia of the Opera by David Ewen (New York: Hill and Wang, 1963), and by The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. by Stanley Sadic, in 4 vlms. (London: Macmillan, 1992).

58 summer with a reconstructed third act; it became a topic at several summer school sessions. Berg’s use of Schoenbergian dodecaphonic music opens a door into the world of modernism in all the arts, let alone a reference to Santa Fe’s support of contemporary music developments. Accordingly, three operas by Arnold Schoenberg were introduced in Santa Fe over the years, namely Erwartung (1980), Die Jakobsleiter even twice (1968, 1980) and Von Heute auf Morgen (1980), making 1980 to a Schoenberg year. The literary production in Germany and Austria of the time embraces the eras of Expressionism, Neue Sachlichkeit, yet in retrospect also Exilliteratur written by exiled authors and composers in the thirties and forties of the twentieth century. This also opens the gates to cabaret music which brings to the fore the memory of Paul Hindemith and Kurt Weill who are both represented in the Santa Fe Opera’s repertoir with Cardillac and News of the Day by the first, and The Protagonist and The Tsar Has His Photograph Taken by the second composer. All this was used in Taos Ski Valley to enliven the literature courses connected with these composers all of whom worked closely with famous writers – Paul Hindemith with Ferdinand

Lion based on Das Fräulein von Scuderi by E. T. A. Hoffmann in Cardillac and Kurt Weill, The Protagonist by Georg Kaiser, let alone Weill’s collaboration with Bertolt Brecht. This enhances courses on the ‘Weimar Republic’ and the confrontation with the Nazi regime to come later in that era. The Post War Era has been strongly represented in Santa Fe by operas of Hans Werner Henze, in fact, six over the years, Siegfried Matthus’ Judith or Hans-Jürgen von Bose’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. Topics and themes like these are constantly revealing the connection between opera and German or comparative literature that are more often than not included in discussions and deliberations during seminars and lecture-discussions at Taos Ski Valley over time. In comparing the written work as represented by the libretto and its sources with the musical production the German Summer School has stressed the textual elements. Musicological considerations have been present at times, even by German speaking experts from the main university’s music department or by guests from other colleges, but here the school had to draw a line in abiding by its calling. Nonetheless music has been a strong part of the curriculum parts out of the ordinary. Next to the opera visits and the studies alluded to before, there is a famous School of Music in Taos Ski Valley9 with chamber and quartet music. Its teachers are players from famous classical quartets, its twenty students selected out of some six hundred students during the year, on the highest national competitive level. Also folk music and jazz

9 Founded by Chilton Anderson and Jean Mayer almost half a century ago this school resides in the St. Bernard Hotel in Taos Ski Valley for eight weeks each summer. Its piano teacher and world renowned pianist Robert McDonald has delighted the German Summer School audience with a special piano concert with scores by many German composers almost every summer.

59 have been offered in the Ski Valley on a regular basis, most recently (2010) a Music Festival in August as organized by the Ski Valley’s Chamber of Com- merce and an idea from Alejandro Blake, grandson of the famous founder of the Ski Valley Ernest H. Blake. The entire Blake family and staff members helped him. This type of modern music has found a home in Europe as well, especially since World War II. Without any doubt the Santa Fe Opera has become a world affair that stands equally to summer opera places such as

Salzburg, Bayreuth, Glyndebourne, Seattle, a. o. It has become an indispens- able, crucial part of the school’s modern curriculum in German Studies, and a highlight of the entire summer session. Since it is not a requirement it is all the more noteworthy that 60 to 80 % of all participants, teachers and students alike, buy their tickets in advance with the application for the school and involve themselves in the event and all the preparatory steps toward it each summer.

III

This leads to the third part and the summary of this discussion and the question: How could opera and its literary relations be part of an academic territory that would bridge the two fields in the production of team taught courses and graduate work that produces theses, dissertations and ultimately a volume of research results in this vein? Present scholarly works are rather one- sided, leaning to the one or the other discipline. Even though results can be found, they are scarce. What did evolve more strongly are seminars and lectures which distribute the weight of attention in a fair and square manner. It always requires a team of two experts in the two respective fields of music and literature. The program of the annual conference of the Modern Language Association for January 2011, has announced one section on “Literature and Opera”, organized by the Division on 19th-Century French Literature.10 For our purpose in German Studies / Germanistik the focus lies on the literary contribution. It arises from the compound question: Which German literary eras and which authors thereof have been delivering ideas and texts, thus impetus and substance to the opera world? The answer requires such a voluminous treatise that we restrict it here in this contemplating essay to some exemplary samples only capable of making a point. Adding to the already stated examples above it can be manifested that there is no historical era that would not be part of the total picture. Beginning

10 808. Literature and Opera. In: Publication of the Modern Language Association of America (PMLA), Program, The 126th MLA Annual Convention, Los Angeles, November 2010, Volume 125, Number 5, p. 1345.

60 with Richard Wagner’s Middle High German epics as offered in the RING, Tristan and Isolde, and Parzifal leading to late medieval topics in Die Meistersinger and Tannhäuser no stone has been left unturned by composers to portray everything German culture may contain intellectually, folkloristically, and ethically. Renaissance and Baroque have been treated in Ernst Krenek’s Charles V, in Richard Strauss’ Friedenstag, originally entitled 1648, thus the end of the Thirty Year War, in Mozart’s Italian operas, even Franz Joseph Haydn’s rediscovered rococo operas were dusted and revived in recent years. Certainly with Goethe and Schiller a cornucopia of opera music to their works has been generated that demands attention. Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s work had several of his dramas and novels adapted into operas. Faust alone has been the source for Charles François Gounod’s11 opera by the same title, by Hector Berlioz’ Le damnation de Faust, by Arrigo Boïto’s Mefistofele, by Ludwig Spohr’s Faust, by Ferruccio Busoni’s Doktor Faust (which was finished by Busoni’s student Philip Jarnach in Berlin and premièred in Dresden 1925), or even by Randy Newman’s contemporary musical Faust, all attesting to the never ending interest in the topic as treated by Goethe, yet also by Christopher Marlowe, actualizing thereby the late medieval Faustbuch, yet with librettos written by mostly lesser known writers. The combined teaching between text and score has filled several team taught seminars at the University of New Mexico which were attended by students, who were not otherwise taking part in the German program, yet drew attention by many of them from various disciplines. The combination of lectures by the professor and by students through projects, by brief listening segments of operas (entire operas were shown on film or video outside the actual seminar time), by discussions and debates got going a lively teaching event with lots of interaction – totally in the sense of Wilhelm Humboldt of what a seminar had to inseminate in a meaningful, vivid activity of higher learning. Friedrich Schiller’s texts successfully transformed into opera are Giuseppe Verdi’s and Michael Costa’s Don Carlos, Verdi’s Luisa Miller, so named instead of Kabale und Liebe12, Peter I. Tchaikovsky’s Maid of Orleans and Giacomo Rossini’s William Tell to name just the best known works from a larger canon of pieces put to music by other composers. Grimm’s Fairy Tales are best represented in Engelbert Humperdinck’s most popular opera Hansel and Gretel after the fairy tale by Jakob Grimm, yet the libretto stemming from the composer’s sister Adelheid Wette. The opera was praised by Richard Strauss when he accepted it for the world premiere in Weimar (on December 23, 1893), writing to the composer: “Truly it is a masterwork of the first rank.”13

11 Gounod’s Faust will be performed at the Santa Fe Opera in the summer of 2011. 12 Which is also named Luise Millerin by Friedrich Schiller. 13 From Ewen’s Encyclopedia of Opera, p. 200.

61 The examples illuminate the possibilities available for combining literature and opera in seminars – either team-taught or offered by one teacher who may invite specialists for certain expert lectures. Considering that the MLA conference of January 2011, with its 821 sections with three to four speakers each from academic institutions all over the United States and in other countries, offered only one section (i. e. 0.21 % of all sections) on opera and literature, then the dearth in this situation becomes apparent. Why that is so may have several reasons – professors not feeling competent enough in one of the fields, students not interested in the combined topic – whatever they are, remedy is called for.14 The German Summer School and its use of the programs of the Santa Fe Opera within its curriculum make obvious how popular this option could be for new ways in “Germanistik / German Studies” – if applied meaningfully.

The building of the Santa Fe Opera outside the city in the pine and juniper steppe of New Mexico.

14 At the close of this essay an international conference of the Department of Music and the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Culture at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, has been announced from April 20–22, 2012, on the topic: “Music in Goethe’s Faust – Goethe’s Faust in Music.”