A WHOLE CANVAS GLOWING: POEMS OF ALMA MAHLER A Thesis Presented to The Graduate Faculty of The University of Akron In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Fine Arts Kristina von Held August, 2010 A WHOLE CANVAS GLOWING: POEMS OF ALMA MAHLER Kristina von Held Thesis Approved: Accepted: _______________________________ _______________________________ Thesis Advisor Department Chair Dr. Mary Biddinger Dr. Michael Schuldiner _______________________________ _______________________________ Committee Member Dean of the College Maggie Anderson Dr. Chand Midha _______________________________ _______________________________ Committee Member Dean of the Graduate School Dr. Craig Paulenich Dr. George R. Newkome ______________________________ Date ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE ................................................................................................................... vii Prelude: Receptions ...........................................................................................1 SECTION I: ON THE RUNWAY OF HISTORY ........................................................3 Encountering Alma ............................................................................................4 Alma’s Origins ...................................................................................................7 He wraps me up .................................................................................................8 My Jewish Trio ..................................................................................................9 Frau Mahler as Mrs. D .....................................................................................10 At the Opera: Liebestod ..................................................................................11 Alma’s Last Waltz ...........................................................................................12 My Music as Yours ..........................................................................................14 Artists’ Wives ..................................................................................................15 Playing My Part, Summer 1902 .......................................................................16 At the Opera: Mother, Villainess .....................................................................17 Summer at Maiernigg ......................................................................................18 His Favorite Child ............................................................................................19 Kindertotenlied I: List of My Vanished Offspring ..........................................20 Gute Nacht, Herr Architekt ..............................................................................21 Freud and Leyden ............................................................................................23 iii If I Had Gone to Leyden ..................................................................................24 It Is Hard ..........................................................................................................25 I Invite the Russian Pianist ..............................................................................26 Dancing in Cleveland, 1911 .............................................................................27 Reminiscence ...................................................................................................28 Interlude: Our Composers, Ourselves ..............................................................29 SECTION II: DEGENERATING INTO ART ............................................................30 Alma Takes Me to Vienna ...............................................................................31 After Mahler.....................................................................................................32 Advice in the Old Country ...............................................................................33 At the Opera: Rosenkavalier – Vienna’s Revenge ..........................................34 Object of Obsession .........................................................................................35 I Knew Better Than to Marry Him ..................................................................36 Oskar Alma Kokoschka ...................................................................................37 Oskar: My Alma ..............................................................................................38 At the Opera: Conversation with a Doll ..........................................................41 Alma’s Ansturm ...............................................................................................42 Alma at the Ballet Russe ..................................................................................43 Walter Gropius Takes Alma to Berlin .............................................................44 Walter’s Wedding Gift: a Painting by Munch .................................................45 At the Opera: Fin-de-siècle femme fatale ........................................................46 Klimt’s Water Nymphs ....................................................................................47 Otto Weininger Bemoans His Feminine Age ..................................................48 iv My Third Little Jew, Vienna 1918 ...................................................................49 Kindertotenlied II: They Don’t Belong to Us ..................................................51 Anna Mahler: In My Mother’s World .............................................................52 Resurrecting My Dead Daughter .....................................................................53 Alma Imagines Her Descent ............................................................................54 The Secret Life of Water ..................................................................................55 That Moment ....................................................................................................56 In Response to Tom Lehrer..............................................................................57 SECTION III: IM EXIL ..............................................................................................58 Closing In .........................................................................................................59 Through the Night Sky.....................................................................................61 Aboard the New Hellas, 1940 ..........................................................................62 Ways to Water the Garden, Beverly Hills 1942 ..............................................63 Im Exil 1945: Alma’s L.A. Elegy ....................................................................64 Alma Hears Voices on the Elevator .................................................................66 Contemplating the Limpet Life ........................................................................67 Visit to Vienna, June 1946 ...............................................................................68 Alma’s Lunar Eclipse ......................................................................................69 Wishcraft: a home-remedy ...............................................................................70 Alma Goes Fishing ..........................................................................................71 In the Bilingual Torture Chamber ....................................................................72 Kindertotenlied III: From Alma’s Album........................................................73 Miss Alma Would Rather Be Dancing ............................................................75 v Alma Calls on Ophelia .....................................................................................77 Alma in March .................................................................................................78 Alma instructs herself in home-remedy euthanasia .........................................80 Postlude: Litany for Alma ................................................................................81 END NOTES ...............................................................................................................83 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................88 vvii PREFACE This book of poems takes its inspiration from the life and legacy of Alma Mahler- Werfel. In fact, most of the poems are written in her voice, hence the somewhat deceptive subtitle “Poems of Alma Mahler.” Alma herself did take up the pen and write, but she wrote memoir and revised, rather liberally, the correspondence of her dead husbands, thus bringing to its written conclusion her role as the helpmate and muse of great male artists. Even in this secondary role, Alma inspired songs, novels, and plays, and multiple biographers and scholars have researched her life in great depth, each emerging with a different focus on her life. Francoise Giroud, for example, presents Alma as a proto- feminist whose creativity found its expression in the subtitle of this biography, “The Art of Being Loved.” And even though, in Giroud’s eyes, attracting the love of artists might be its own reward, Alma herself was fully aware of starting down this path with the sacrifice of her music for that of her husband. Why she never returned to music after the ten-year marriage came to its end remains a mystery. Was it just her love of society and parties, as her composition