The Operetta Empire: Music Theater in Early Twentieth-Century ViennaCHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, 2022 "When the world comes to an end," Viennese writer Karl Kraus lamented in 1908, "all the big city orchestras will still be playing The Merry Widow." Viennese operettas like Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow were preeminent cultural texts during the Austro-Hungarian Empire's final years. Alternately hopeful and nihilistic, operetta staged contemporary debates about gender, nationality, and labor. The Operetta Empire delves into this vibrant theatrical culture, whose creators simultaneously sought the respectability of high art and the popularity of low entertainment. Case studies examine works by Lehár, Emmerich Kálmán, Oscar Straus, and Leo Fall in light of current musicological conversations about hybridity and middlebrow culture. Demonstrating a thorough mastery of the complex early twentieth‐century Viennese cultural scene, and a sympathetic and redemptive critique of a neglected popular genre, Micaela Baranello establishes operetta as an important element of Viennese cultural life—one whose transgressions helped define the musical hierarchies of its day. |
Contents
Operetta in Vienna | 1 |
Die lustige Witwe and the Creation of Silver Age Viennese Operetta | 15 |
Sentimentality Satire and Labor | 44 |
Hungary Vienna and the Gypsy Operetta | 73 |
Operetta and the Great War | 93 |
Exotic Liaisons | 122 |
Operetta in the Past Tense | 158 |
Notes | 177 |
| 215 | |
| 229 | |
Other editions - View all
The Operetta Empire: Music Theater in Early Twentieth-Century Vienna Micaela Baranello Limited preview - 2021 |
The Operetta Empire: Music Theater in Early Twentieth-Century Vienna Micaela Baranello No preview available - 2024 |
Common terms and phrases
Adorno Alfred Grünwald audience Austrian Austro-Hungarian Bajadere Berlin Brammer Budapest cabaret Carl-Theater chapter characters critics csárdás Csárdásfürstin culture Damenkapelle dance Danilo Decsey Der Zigeunerprimas described Die Bajadere Die Csárdásfürstin Die lustige Witwe Ein Walzertraum Eisen Emmerich Kálmán Empire entertainment entrance song eretta Ernst example exotic exoticism film Franz Lehár genre German Gold gab Gypsy music Hanna Jewish Johann Strauss Johann Strauss II Karczag Karl Kraus Laczi Land des Lächelns Leo Fall librettists libretto Linhardt Ludwig lustige Witwe Marischka modern Musik Odette Offenbach onstage opera operetta operetta composers orchestra Parisian performance play plot Pontevedran popular premiere production Rácz Radjami Regiebuch role Rose von Stambul Sandór satire Schlager score Silver Age operetta singing social Sou-Chong stage Straus style hongrois success Sylva Tauber Theater theatrical tion traditional Traubner twentieth century University Press Victor Léon Vienna Viennese operetta violin vocal waltz Walzertraum Wien Wiener Operette wrote Zigeunerprimas