Urban Opera: Navigating Modernity through the Oeuvre of Strauss and Hofmannsthal by Solveig M. Heinz A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Germanic Languages and Literatures) in the University of Michigan 2013 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Vanessa H. Agnew, Chair Associate Professor Naomi A. André Associate Professor Andreas Gailus Professor Julia C. Hell i For John ii Acknowledgements Writing this dissertation was an intensive journey. Many people have helped along the way. Vanessa Agnew was the most wonderful Doktormutter a graduate student could have. Her kindness, wit, and support were matched only by her knowledge, resourcefulness, and incisive critique. She took my work seriously, carefully reading and weighing everything I wrote. It was because of this that I knew my work and ideas were in good hands. Thank you Vannessa, for taking me on as a doctoral rookie, for our countless conversations, your smile during Skype sessions, coffee in Berlin, dinners in Ann Arbor, and the encouragement to make choices that felt right. Many thanks to my committee members, Naomi André, Andreas Gailus, and Julia Hell, who supported the decision to work with the challenging field of opera and gave me the necessary tools to succeed. Their open doors, email accounts, good mood, and guiding feedback made this process a joy. Mostly, I thank them for their faith that I would continue to work and explore as I wrote remotely. Not on my committee, but just as important was Hartmut. So many students have written countless praises of this man. I can only concur, he is simply the best. I am incredibly grateful and consider myself lucky to have worked with the exceptional graduate students of our department. I will truly miss this diverse group. The journey would have lacked a certain tone without Simon’s post-its, Ela’s laptop music, Jeff’s owl, Joshua’s orange Affe, Kathryn’s prelim cake, Michael’s breaks, Jenny’s rock iii climbing session, and Nick’s chalkboard drawings. I’m indebted to Ariana, Kathryn, and Hirak for proofreading this dissertation. Above all, I am indebted to Seth Howes and Sara Jackson for being such good friends. Seth has provided his keen insight, last minute revisions, brisket, and bold humor. Sara Jackson has been my partner in crime since Oregon 2002. I thank her for the office, the food, the edits, the all-nighters, and the many moments of “Jesses, das auch noch.ˮ None of this would have been possible without my family. I thank my sister Rebekka for her unfailing loyalty. She has been my inspiration. To my brother Joachim, who has been my 911 since high school. My brother Dominik, who flew a day to see me for an evening. My brother Friedemann for our study sessions in Ann Arbor. My brother Konrad, for ransacking his library when mine failed me. And my brother Amadeus and his countless phone calls at night. To Mammes, the most gifted, modest, and giving person I know. And my dad. Paps, words cannot express my gratitude for what you did for me during the Endspurt phase. Of all the Geschenke you gave, this one was the biggest. I dedicate this dissertation to John, the one who has lived with me through every page of it. You are so passionate about this project and supportive in every aspect of it, from reading drafts, to giving hugs, to taking care of diapers and heaps of dishes, so I could write. It is because of you that I can be a scholar and a mother. And it is because of you that I am writing these last lines. Thank you for making all my dreams come true. iv Table of Contents Dedication ii Acknowledgements iii List of Figures vi Introduction: Urban Opera 1 Chapter 1: Operatic Sound Effects 29 Chapter 2: Into Battle with the Art of Noise 59 Chapter 3: A Female Acoustic 98 Chapter 4: The Visual Ear 152 Conclusion 187 Appendix: The Six Strauss/Hofmannsthal Operas 195 Works Cited 196 v List of Figures Figure 1: William Hogarth, Marriage à-la-mode 69 Figure 2: Phonograph Cabinet, 1912 152 Figure 3: The Omniscient Shell on First Performance 164 Figure 4: Die Kronennaht (Coronal Suture) 169 vi Introduction: Urban Opera Jarred rudely awake, the protagonist of Musil’s “Der Erweckteˮ pulls back the curtains of his apartment window and regards the city below. He must be living on the third or fourth floor, as he can make out rooftops, chimneys, street canyons, and electric cables. As he gazes at the cityscape, his describes what he sees as weird, disordered, and confusing.1 The decorative facade of a building, for instance, is here “completely inexplicableˮ (völlig unerklärlich).2 As the reader learns, his visual perception is clouded by darkness and shadows. The sudden awakening suggested by the title takes place not now, in the middle of the night, but instead long after the protagonist has arisen. Footsteps, moving down a street, trigger an instant feeling of relief: Endlich kommen zwei Beine durch die Nacht. Der Schritt zweier Frauenbeine und das Ohr: Nicht schauen will ich. Mein Ohr steht auf der Straße wie ein Eingang. Niemals werde ich mit einer Frau so vereint sein wie mit dieser unbekannten, deren Schritte jetzt immer tiefer in meinem Ohr verschwinden. At last two legs come through the night. The step of two woman’s legs and the ear: I don’t want to look. My ear stands like a gateway on the street. Never will I be so at one with a woman as with this unknown figure whose steps disappear ever deeper in my ear.3 The sound of the footsteps prompts a shift from the ambiguity that he felt while looking at the city. He instantly feels connected to this walking woman, whom he only knows through the sound of her feet. His ear becomes, in his own words, an entryway into the 1 Musil, 23-4 (English, 18). 2 Ibid., 24 (English, 18). 3 Ibid., 24 (my translation). 1 self, a bridge between the audible (epiphenomenal) and the essential, which associates the external perception with the internal reality. For the first time since waking, the eerie distance between himself and his surroundings disappears. The urban stranger, who exists only as sound, walks down the street and directly into the narrator’s ear. The protagonist now embarks on further aural excursions and discovers two more women, all while remaining in his garret. Again, their sound becomes his sole means of gathering information: “Dann zwei Frauen. Die eine filzig schleichend, die andere stapfend mit der Rücksichtslosigkeit des Alters. Ich sehe hinab. Schwarz.ˮ (Then two women. The one sordidly slinking along, the other stamping with the disregard of age. I look down. Black.)4 Hearing only their footsteps, the narrator deduces age, personality, and eventually even their destination (church). Sight, on the other hand, serves only to disorient and confuse him. The protagonist of Der Erweckte is only one of many early twentieth-century German speakers who encountered his rapidly modernizing environment by listening to it. Writer Thomas Mann, painter Paul Klee, and architect August Endell all dissected the sounds in- and outside their apartments and houses.5 Arthur Schnitzler and Rainer Maria Rilke discussed their encounters with the phonograph; their fascination was matched by Walter Benjamin’s vivid childhood memories of the telephone.6 And Franz Kafka, Hugo 4 Ibid., 24 (English, 18). 5 For Thomas Mann see Herr und Hund. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Bücherei, 1955; for Paul Klee see R. Murray Schafer, The Soundscape. Rochester: Destiny Books, 1977: 6; for August Endell see “Die Schönheit der großen Stadt.” Der Antirüpel 2 (1908): 26. 6 For Rainer Maria Rilke see “Urgeräuschˮ In Sämtliche Werke, Vol. 6. Frankfurt am Main: Insel-Verlag, 1966: 1087; for Arthur Schnitzler see Heinz Hiebler, Medienkultur. Würzburg: Verlag Königshausen und Neumann, 2003: 396; for Walter Benjamin see “The Telephoneˮ in Berlin Childhood around 1900. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006: 48. 2 von Hofmannsthal, and Alfred Fried lived in despair over urban noise.7 They were joined by a legion of fictional residents who were sharply discerning of their acoustic environment. Hans Castorp, Hans Haller, Franz Biberkopf, and Ulrich are among a crowd of nameless protagonists that were consumed by a conglomeration of new and old sounds in their lives. All these thinkers exhibited not a clairvoyance, but rather a clairaudience: a change in sensory capacity catalyzed by a changing acoustic and aural culture in German and Austrian urban life. Between 1890 and the late 1920s, decades which marked a radical transformation of the urban soundscape, many turned toward their acoustic environment, with some appropriating it (like the feminists), others trying to suppress it (like the anti-noise league). Yet others used it as an aesthetic inspiration to critically engage questions of perception, identity, and (sexual) politics. This dissertation argues that urban culture was marked by the emergence of a distinct sonic sensibility, a sensitivity not only to the world of sound itself, but also the cultural and political transformations that novel sounds represented.8 The operas of composer Richard Strauss and poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal are representative examples of this new sonic sensibility. They thematized new sounds and the modes of hearing associated with them. While the oeuvre of Strauss and are not generally considered representative of modernism, and indeed tend to be seen as 7 For Franz Kafka see Briefe. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2005: 126; for Hugo von Hofmannsthal see “Antilärmiten.ˮ Der Antirüpel (Antirowdy) 4, no. 1 (1909): 53; for Alfred Fried see “Zwei Briefe.” Der Antirüpel (Antirowdy) 5, no.1 (1909): 82-83.