Cultural and Political Regeneration at the Opera House: Richard Strauss, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Die Frau ohne Schatten

This paper will discuss the composition of Die Frau ohne Schatten during World War One, the decision to postpone its premiere to mark the conclusion of the war, and the ways in which the imperial operatic scenario of a fairy-tale emperor and empress fit the postwar political moment of the passing of empires. This huge opera, with an enormous orchestra, extremely difficult vocal parts, and very complicated scene changes, was a work that required considerable planning and expense, an opera for festival occasions. This paper will address the postwar premiere in Vienna in 1919, the opera's festival significance for interwar republican Austria, its festival role in celebrating Richard Strauss during the Third Reich, and its later-twentieth-century festival significance in the reopening of the Vienna Opera House in 1955 and the establishment of the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center in New York in 1966.