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Grand palaces of culture, opera theaters marked the center of European cities like the cathedrals of the Middle Ages. As opera cast its spell, almost every European city and society aspired to have its own opera house, and dozens of new theaters were constructed in the course of the "long" nineteenth century. At the time of the French Revolution in 1789, only a few, mostly royal, opera theaters, existed in Europe. However, by the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries nearly every large town possessed a theater in which operas were performed, especially in Central Europe, the region upon which this book concentrates. This volume, a revised and extended version of two well-reviewed books published in German and Czech, explores the social and political background to this "opera mania" in nineteenth century Central Europe. After tracing the major trends in the opera history of the period, including the emergence of national genres of opera and its various social functions and cultural meanings, the author contrasts the histories of the major houses in Dresden (a court theater), Lemberg (a theater built and sponsored by aristocrats), and Prague (a civic institution). Beyond the operatic institutions and their key stage productions, composers such as Carl Maria von Weber, Richard Wagner, Bedřich Smetana, Stanisław Moniuszko, Antonín Dvořák, and Richard Strauss are put in their social and political contexts. The concluding chapter, bringing together the different leitmotifs of social and cultural history explored in the rest of the book, explains the specificities of opera life in Central Europe within a wider European and global framework.
Abbreviations

List of Illustrations

Foreword

Part One: Introduction

Part Two: The Royal Theater in Dresden

1. Organization and Control of the Royal Theater

2. Constructing National Culture

3. Europeanization and Musical Modernism

Part Three: The Polish Theater in Lemberg

4. Social Foundations

5. Provincial Opera

Part Four: The Czech National Theater in Prague

6. Launching the National Theater Project

7. A Theater for All Classes

8. The Opera Nation

Part Five: Comparison, Cultural Transfers, and Networks

9. Opera and Society

10. Nationalizing Opera

11. Cultural Exchanges and Europeanization

Bibliography and Sources

Acknowledgments

Index

Sujets

Histoire

History of Europe

Eastern

History

Europe

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Publié par	Purdue University Press
Date de parution	15 mai 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781612493305
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Center Stage: Operatic Culture and Nation Building in Nineteenth-Century Central Europe
Philipp Ther
Central European Studies
Charles W. Ingrao, senior editor Gary B. Cohen, editor Franz A. J. Szabo, editor Daniel L. Unowsky, editor
Center Stage: Operatic Culture and Nation Building in Nineteenth-Century Central Europe
Philipp Ther
Translated from the German by Charlotte Hughes-Kreutzmuller
Copyright 2014 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ther, Philipp, author.
[In der Mitte der Gesellschaft. English]
Center Stage: Operatic Culture and Nation Building in Nineteenth-Century Central Europe / Philipp Ther; translated by Charlotte Hughes-Kreutzmuller.
pages cm. -- (Central European Studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55753-675-4 (pbk.) -- ISBN (invalid) 978-1-61249-329-9 (epdf) -- ISBN 978-1-61249-330-5 (epub) 1. Opera--Social aspects--Germany--Dresden--19th century. 2. Opera--Social aspects--Germany--Dresden--20th century. 3. Opera--Social aspects--Ukraine--L’viv--19th century. 4. Opera--Social aspects--Ukraine--L’viv--20th century. 5. Opera--Social aspects--Czech Republic--Prague--19th century. 6. Opera--Social aspects--Czech Republic--Prague--20th century. 7. Nationalism in music. I. Hughes-Kreutzmuller, Charlotte, translator. II. Title.
ML3918.O64T5413 2014
782.10943--dc23
2013042264
To the memory of Manolo Alarcon Ramirez, the true opera buff in our family
Contents
Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
Foreword
Part One
Introduction
Part Two
The Royal Theater in Dresden
1. Organization and Control of the Royal Theater
2. Constructing National Culture
3. Europeanization and Musical Modernism
Part Three
The Polish Theater in Lemberg
4. Social Foundations
5. Provincial Opera
Part Four
The Czech National Theater in Prague
6. Launching the National Theater Project
7. A Theater for All Classes
8. The Opera Nation
Part Five
Comparison, Cultural Transfers, and Networks
9. Opera and Society
10. Nationalizing Opera
11. Cultural Exchanges and Europeanization
Bibliography and Sources
Acknowledgments
Index
Abbreviations AND Archive of the National Theater (Archiv Národního Divadla) DALO State Regional Archive L’viv (Derzhavnyi arkhiv L’vivs’koyi oblasti) DJ Dresdner Journal EMTA Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne SHAD Saxonian State Archive, Dresden (Sächsisches Hauptstaatsar chiv Dresden) MdKH Ministry of the Royal House (Ministerium des Königlichen Hauses) MMC Minutes of the Managing Council (spravný výbor) NA National Archive Prague (Národní archiv) ND National Theater (Národní divadlo) PM Presidency of the Gouvernement (Präsidium der Statthalterei) PVS Protocoll of the Great Assembly (valné schůze) of the National Theater Association r. year (rok) SSD Complete essays and poetry by Richard Wagner ( Sämtliche Schriften und Dichtungen Richard Wagners ) t. volume (tom) TsDIAU Central Historical State Archive of the Ukraine, L’viv
List of Illustrations
Figure 1. Star singer Emma Turolla.
Figure 2. Interior of the Semper Theater.
Figure 3. The Second Semper Theater in 1878.
Figure 4. The royal box in Dresden.
Figure 5. Realistic stage sets for Tannhäuser in 1866.
Figure 6. Caricature of Richard Strauss’ orchestration of Elektra.
Figure 7. Count Skarbek, founder of the Skarbek Theater.
Figure 8. The Skarbek Theater, built in 1842.
Figure 9. Auditorium of the Skarbek Theater.
Figure 10. The new Lemberg Theater, opened in 1900.
Figure 11. A share certificate issued by the National Theater Association.
Figure 12. The Czech National Theater in Prague.
Figure 13. Original program of the Czech National Theater’s guest performance in Vienna.
Figure 14. Positivist costumes for The Bartered Bride in 1892.
Figure 15. Symbolist stage sets for Libuše .
Figure 16. European landscape by the studio Brioschi, Burghart, and Kautsky.
Music example 1. Die Folkunger by E. Kretschmer.
Music example 2. The dance of the seven veils in Salome.
Music example 3. The clock symbolizing the ticking life of the Polish nation in Moniuszko’s Straszny Dwór.
Music example 4. Dramatic scene from the fourth act of Konrad Wallenrod.
Music example 5. Folkloristic dance in J. I. Paderewski’s Manru.
Music example 6. Opening scene from the musical melodrama Hippodamie.
Music example 7. Aria to the moon in Rusalka.
Music example 8. Pohádka o Honzovi.
Music example 9. Scene from Lohengrin accenting deutsch (German).
Music example 10. Nationally encoded Marsh from The Mastersingers of Nuremberg.
Music example 11. National mobilization in The Brandenburgers in Bohemia.
Music example 12. Construction of Polish national music in A Life for the Czar.
Music example 13. Final scene from Halka.
Foreword
Philipp Ther’s Center Stage: Operatic Culture and Nation Building in Nineteenth-Century Central Europe is a most welcome addition to the series, Central European Studies. In 2006 Oldenbourg/Böhlau Verlag in Vienna published a book in German as Ther’s Habilitation thesis that was based on the same initial body of research. He then revised the study for publication in Czech by Dokořán in Prague in 2008. Both these versions drew much praise in scholarly reviews. Now with this newly revised and expanded English version, a broader English-reading public will gain access to Ther’s work, which adds important new dimensions to our understanding of middle-class public life in nineteenth-century Central Europe and the development of modern opera theaters during a critical phase.
Ther’s thoroughly researched and perceptively argued study examines the evolution of opera theaters as major cultural institutions in three important regional capitals during the late nineteenth century: the Royal Theater (Semper Opera) in Dresden, the Czech National Theater in Prague, and the Polish Theater in Lemberg/Lwów/Lviv. He describes in vivid terms how the rise of modern social structures, particularly those of the urban middle classes, and of nationalist cultures and public life altered the character, repertoire, and public functions of these theaters. In the process Central European opera houses were transformed from institutions where aristocrats and the wealthiest of the middle classes went to be entertained by mostly imported Italian or French works to typically larger and technically more sophisticated theaters with more diverse although still stratified audiences and with mixed repertoires which included elements of native national opera and theater.
Ther’s study demonstrates tellingly the centrality of the opera theaters to cultural, social, and political life in their cities and the surrounding territories during the late nineteenth century. In a carefully nuanced account he argues convincingly that none of the three cases saw a simple linear development from royal or aristocratic sponsorship to bourgeois domination. Moreover, no matter how strong and assertive nationalist political and cultural activists may have become in each community, they did not succeed in the long run in making native or “national” pieces dominate the opera and theater repertoire in these houses. Theater managers, artists, and audiences proved to be more committed to diverse repertoires that would include, they hoped, the best of both the national and the cosmopolitan. Ther also looks beyond the three culturally significant regional capitals to take into account the cultural life in imperial capitals such as Berlin and Vienna and offers stimulating insights about the development of the broader social, economic, and cultural circumstances of European and transatlantic opera theaters. One gains from this study a deeper understanding of the dynamics of changing sponsorship and the changing mix of international and national repertoires.
Scholars and students who are interested in modern Central European cultural and social history or in music history and members of the broader reading public who are interested in the development of the modern performing arts and the great Central European opera theaters will surely welcome this book as a volume in the series, Central European Studies.
Gary B. Cohen Series editor
Part One
Introduction
Opera was the cultural institution of the nineteenth century. It functioned as a magnet to the masses, yet at the same time represented a quest for high culture. Opera was a marker of prestige by which its patrons demonstrated their wealth and power, and hence was a very political institution. Also as an art form, opera was at the heart of society. 1 As grand palaces of culture, opera theaters marked the center of European cities like the cathedrals of the Middle Ages. As opera cast its spell, almost every European city and society aspired to have its own opera house and many new theaters were constructed in the course of the long nineteenth century. At the time of the French Revolution, only a few dozen, mostly royal, opera theaters existed in Europe. But in the span of a hundred years, the continent’s cultural landscape had been profoundly changed. By the end of the nineteenth century, nearly every large town possessed a theater in which operas were performed. This is especially true for Central Europe, upon which this book concentrates. The question of whether there were sufficient means or a public to maintain an opera house was secondary to the goal of being one of the cultured cities and refined peoples of Europe, of being a part of “European civilization.”
For the most part this building boom—in terms of both culture and architecture—took place irrespective of social grounding or the existence of a middle class in the western European sense. Urban societies that saw themselves as peripheral, backward, or oppressed tended mostly to build large theaters. From Barcelona in the west to Odessa in the east and Helsinki in the north, Europe became equipped with a networ