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The Shadow of the Empress: Fairy-Tale Opera and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy
A beguiling exploration of the last Habsburg monarchs' grip on Europe's historical and cultural imagination.
In 1919 the last Habsburg rulers, Emperor Karl and Empress Zita, left Austria, going into exile. That same year, the fairy-tale opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow), featuring a mythological emperor and empress, premiered at the Vienna Opera. Viennese poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal and German composer Richard Strauss created Die Frau ohne Schatten through the bitter years of World War I, imagining it would triumphantly appear after the victory of the German and Habsburg empires. Instead, the premiere came in the aftermath of catastrophic defeat.
The Shadow of the Fairy-Tale Opera and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy explores how the changing circumstances of politics and society transformed their opera and its cultural meanings before, during, and after the First World War.
Strauss and Hofmannsthal turned emperors and empresses into fantastic fairy-tale characters; meanwhile, following the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy after the war, their real-life counterparts, removed from political life in Europe, began to be regarded as anachronistic, semi-mythological figures. Reflecting on the seismic cultural shifts that rocked post-imperial Europe, Larry Wolff follows the story of Karl and Zita after the loss of their thrones. Karl died in 1922, but Zita lived through the rise of Nazism, World War II, and the Cold War. By her death in 1989, she had herself become a fairy-tale figure, a totem of imperial nostalgia.
Wolff weaves together the story of the opera's composition and performance; the end of the Habsburg monarchy; and his own family's life in and exile from Central Europe, providing a rich new understanding of Europe's cataclysmic twentieth century, and our contemporary relationship to it.
In 1919 the last Habsburg rulers, Emperor Karl and Empress Zita, left Austria, going into exile. That same year, the fairy-tale opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow), featuring a mythological emperor and empress, premiered at the Vienna Opera. Viennese poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal and German composer Richard Strauss created Die Frau ohne Schatten through the bitter years of World War I, imagining it would triumphantly appear after the victory of the German and Habsburg empires. Instead, the premiere came in the aftermath of catastrophic defeat.
The Shadow of the Fairy-Tale Opera and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy explores how the changing circumstances of politics and society transformed their opera and its cultural meanings before, during, and after the First World War.
Strauss and Hofmannsthal turned emperors and empresses into fantastic fairy-tale characters; meanwhile, following the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy after the war, their real-life counterparts, removed from political life in Europe, began to be regarded as anachronistic, semi-mythological figures. Reflecting on the seismic cultural shifts that rocked post-imperial Europe, Larry Wolff follows the story of Karl and Zita after the loss of their thrones. Karl died in 1922, but Zita lived through the rise of Nazism, World War II, and the Cold War. By her death in 1989, she had herself become a fairy-tale figure, a totem of imperial nostalgia.
Wolff weaves together the story of the opera's composition and performance; the end of the Habsburg monarchy; and his own family's life in and exile from Central Europe, providing a rich new understanding of Europe's cataclysmic twentieth century, and our contemporary relationship to it.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
428 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 2, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 25, 2023
In less than 400 pages (not including end notes, which are limited to citations) the author attempts to relate the drafting of an opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (translating to The Woman Without a Shadow), the years around its development and release, and the last Hapsburg Empress. It's a lot of ground to cover and oftentimes I felt like a reviewer of the opera in 1919 - there's too much x, cut that back, but some lovely w and z.
It was particularly irksome how the author seemed in the first piece to take the version of events ex-Empress/Queen Zita told in the 1970s as prescient without adding any other contempraneous accounts, and the really slapdash/forgiving way he talked about co-author Hammendaft's "bouts" of anti-semitism. This bled into his account of the late 20s - 30s and the World War II years. I feel for him as he had family who fled Austria and died in the Holocaust but there's almost a slapdash or haphazard nature to that part of the narrative that holds up poorly.
But overall an interesting take on an opera that is often not highlighted.
It was particularly irksome how the author seemed in the first piece to take the version of events ex-Empress/Queen Zita told in the 1970s as prescient without adding any other contempraneous accounts, and the really slapdash/forgiving way he talked about co-author Hammendaft's "bouts" of anti-semitism. This bled into his account of the late 20s - 30s and the World War II years. I feel for him as he had family who fled Austria and died in the Holocaust but there's almost a slapdash or haphazard nature to that part of the narrative that holds up poorly.
But overall an interesting take on an opera that is often not highlighted.
June 11, 2023
Incredibly knowledgeable writing. I liked following the thread of the story from the empress to Strauss and Hofmannsthal and through society. I came into this with little background knowledge about Austria during this period or Opera and learned a lot.
July 27, 2023
Enjoyed the book. Now I understand why the opera “Die Frau ohne Schatten” is more of a throwback to Wagner and German mysticism and not something closer to Puccini.
September 18, 2023
If you are a fan of Die Frau Ohne Schotten this is the book for you and the author does a wonderful job interspersing political history as well.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews