Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2009 Gustav Mahler, Alfred Roller, and the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk: Tristan and Affinities Between the Arts at the Vienna Court Opera Stephen Carlton Thursby Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MUSIC GUSTAV MAHLER, ALFRED ROLLER, AND THE WAGNERIAN GESAMTKUNSTWERK: TRISTAN AND AFFINITIES BETWEEN THE ARTS AT THE VIENNA COURT OPERA By STEPHEN CARLTON THURSBY A Dissertation submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2009 The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation of Stephen Carlton Thursby defended on April 3, 2009. _______________________________ Denise Von Glahn Professor Directing Dissertation _______________________________ Lauren Weingarden Outside Committee Member _______________________________ Douglass Seaton Committee Member Approved: ___________________________________ Douglass Seaton, Chair, Musicology ___________________________________ Don Gibson, Dean, College of Music The Graduate School has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii To my wonderful wife Joanna, for whose patience and love I am eternally grateful. In memory of my grandfather, James C. Thursby (1926-2008). iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without the generous assistance and support of numerous people. My thanks go to the staff of the Austrian Theater Museum and Austrian National Library-Music Division, especially to Dr. Vana Greisenegger, curator of the visual materials in the Alfred Roller Archive of the Austrian Theater Museum. I would also like to thank the musicology faculty of the Florida State University College of Music for awarding me the Curtis Mayes Scholar Award, which funded my dissertation research in Vienna over two consecutive summers (2007- 2008). Special thanks are due to my committee members, Dr. Lauren Weingarden, Dr. Douglass Seaton, and Dr. Denise Von Glahn, for their help in developing and editing the dissertation. I would like to express particular gratitude to Denise Von Glahn for her tireless work in reading earlier drafts of the document, and for providing me with encouragement and thoughtful comments for improving my work. Personal thanks go to my mother and father for all their encouragement over the years, especially as I worked to finish my “Theme.” Deepest thanks go to my wonderful wife Joanna, without whose love and support my work would not be possible. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures vii List of Musical Examples viii Abstract ix INTRODUCTION 1 Survey of Literature 7 PART I: HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS 1. MUSIC IN RELATION TO THE OTHER ARTS IN THE GERMAN IDEALIST TRADITION 13 Lessing 18 Lessing Revisited: Irving Babbitt’s The New Laokoon 26 German Romantics and Divisions between the Arts 33 2. WAGNER’S CONCEPTION OF THE GESAMTKUNSTWERK 45 Influence of Earlier Philosophers 46 Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft 50 Oper und Drama 59 Bayreuth and the Gesamtkunstwerk 63 Mann on the Gesamtkunstwerk 65 Tristan and Isolde as a Gesamtkunstwerk? The Influence 67 of Schopenhauer’s Philosophy PART II: THE 1903 VIENNA COURT OPERA TRISTAN 3. MAHLER’S ENGAGEMENT WITH WAGNER’S MUSIC AND GESAMTKUNSTWERK IDEAL 71 Mahler’s Work in Leipzig, Budapest, and Hamburg 73 Reforms in Vienna 81 Mahler as Conductor and Director 89 4. ROLLER AND STAGE DESIGN 104 Views on Stage Design 104 Roller’s Visual Style in Tristan 113 v 5. ROLLER’S DESIGNS AND THE GESAMTKUNSTWERK 146 The Influence of Wagner on Visual Artists 146 Wagner’s Score as Inspiration for Visual Design 177 PART III: RESONANCES 6. TWENTIETH-CENTURY COLLABORATORS 187 Ballets Russes 188 Ballets Suédois (1920-1925) 195 Wieland Wagner and Postwar Bayreuth 203 CONCLUSIONS 220 BIBLIOGRAPHY 224 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 240 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1. The Laocoön Group (1st century BCE) 21 Figure 4.1. Alfred Roller: sketch of Tristan standing (courtesy OETM) 121 Figure 4.2. Roller: Isolde reclining in Act I (courtesy OETM) 124 Figure 4.3. Roller: Tristan and Isolde embrace (courtesy OETM) 126 Figure 4.4. Detail of Figure 4.3 127 Figure 4.5. Roller: Isolde transfigured in Act II (courtesy OETM) 129 Figure 4.6. Detail of Figure 4.5 129 Figure 4.7. Roller: Tristan und Isolde, Act I Beginning (courtesy OETM) 136 Figure 4.8. Roller: Tristan und Isolde, Act I End (courtesy OETM) 136 Figure 4.9. Roller: Tristan und Isolde, Act II Beginning (courtesy OETM) 137 Figure 4.10. Carlo Brioschi: Tristan und Isolde, Act II (courtesy OETM) 137 Figure 4.11. Roller: Tristan und Isolde, Act II End (courtesy OETM) 138 Figure 4.12. Roller: Tristan und Isolde, Act III (courtesy OETM) 139 Figure 5.1. Proscenium Frieze in the Chicago Auditorium Theater 155 Figure 5.2. Fleury’s Autumn Reverie Mural in the Chicago 155 Auditorium Theater. Figure 5.3. Fleury’s Spring Song Mural in the Chicago Auditorium Theater 156 Figure 5.4. The Vienna Secession 175 vii LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES Example 4.1. Tristan und Isolde, Act I, Scene 5, mm. 186-188 121 Example 4.2. Tristan und Isolde, Act I, Scene 1, mm. 25-26 123 Example 4.3. Tristan und Isolde, Act I, Scene 2, mm. 23-26 125 Example 4.4. Tristan und Isolde, Act II, Scene 2, mm. 21-22 127 Example 4.5. Tristan und Isolde, Act II, Scene 1, mm. 453-454 128 Example 4.6. Tristan und Isolde, Act II, Scene 1, mm. 384-388 130 Example 5.1. Das Rheingold, Act I, Scene 1, mm. 137-142 171 (Rhinemaiden Theme) Example 5.2. Die Walküre, Act III, Scene 3, m. 694 (Magic Fire Music) 171 Example 5.3. Die Walküre, Act III, Scene 3, mm. 667-669 (Spear Motive) 172 viii ABSTRACT Gustav Mahler’s music has been extensively studied and discussed in both scholarly and popular circles, especially since the middle of the past century. His conducting and directorial activity, however, deserves greater attention. The 1903 Vienna Court Opera production of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde was a landmark in opera history because of Mahler's masterful conducting and Secession artist Alfred Roller's vibrant costumes, sets, and lighting design. Roller helped to move the Court Opera away from overly naturalistic and museum-like stage sets and costumes towards greater stylization and abstraction. The dissertation situates this collaborative project within fin- de-siècle debates about the nature of the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk, which today is generally misinterpreted as a multimedia spectacle in which all production elements are conceived organically. Previous studies of this production explored the technical achievements of Mahler and Roller and surveyed the critical response in Vienna. More work remains to be done in examining the deeper cultural significance of the Mahler-Roller Tristan and differing contemporary views on the proper balance of aural and visual stimuli in the Gesamtkunstwerk. This study demonstrates the degree to which Mahler participated in a long tradition of addressing the proper sphere of the arts in the theatrical spectacle through his work with Roller in Vienna. Their partnership also anticipated the spirit of cooperation and mutual encouragement that characterized the work of influential troupes such as the Ballets Russes and Ballets Suédois, both of which represented the “modern” in the twenty years after Mahler’s death. The spirit of the Mahler-Roller production of Tristan und Isolde can also be detected in Wieland Wagner’s bold postwar productions at Bayreuth. Through his work with Roller, Mahler served as a link between naturalistic Romantic stage practice, epitomized by many nineteenth-century Wagner productions, and the more symbolic style of twentieth-century directors such as Wieland Wagner. ix INTRODUCTION In these scenic images the most modern principles of art seem to have guided the theater painter’s brush. The stage image appears to hog all the artistic appeal and moreover to want to relate symbolically and intellectually to the plot […] These endeavors seem fully to embrace Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk.1 -Critic Julius Korngold, on the Mahler-Roller Tristan (1903) There has never been a Gesamtkunstwerk. Perhaps one could even say: there will never be a Gesamtkunstwerk. To create one is just as impossible as perpetual motion or squaring a circle.2 -Composer Juan Allende-Blin (1994) On February 21, 1903, a new production of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde premiered at the Vienna Court Opera. This was the first major collaboration between music director Gustav Mahler and his stage designer, the Secession artist Alfred Roller. The production’s striking visual images, incorporating key colors for each act, lush new costumes and props, and dramatic lighting effects, provoked the most discussion in the press. Many critics praised this production as the realization of Wagner’s artistic ideal, as the first quote above indicates. For Mahler biographer Henry-Louis de La Grange, the 1903 Tristan also marked a significant step beyond Wagner’s productions at Bayreuth and towards the true ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk. The idea of a “total” or “collective” work of art was developed by Wagner in his theoretical writings around 1850 while in exile in Switzerland after the failed 1848 Dresden uprisings. Philosophical examinations of the proper form and function of the different arts, and the degree to which they might be combined, had a long history. Leaders of the German Enlightenment, such as art historian Johann Joachim 1 Julius Korngold, Neue Freie Presse (22 February 1903). “In diesen szenischen Bildern scheinen modernste Kunstprinzipien den Pinsel des Theatermalers gelenkt zu haben. Das Bühnenbild scheint Kunstwirkung für sich zu beanspruchen und überdies in symbolische, geistige Beziehungen treten zu wollen zur Handlung […] Diesen Bestrebungen scheint Wagners Gesamtkunstwerk weit die Arme zu öffnen.” All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.