Title: Richard Strauss, Arabella /
Authors: Birkin, Kenneth.
Date: 1989
Publisher: Cambridge University Press,
Physical description: xiii, 162 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm.
Language: English
LC classification: M
Abstract: This is the first comprehensive guide to Richard Strauss's Arabella. The opening chapters explore the literary background of the work, and examine the Strauss-Hofmannsthal collaboration. Arabella is seen as the culmination of specific ideas and techniques: an attempt to win something of the subtlety of the spoken theatre for the operatic stage and to find a balance between words and music. A full synopsis of the work provides an insight into the psychological motivation of the drama and an impression of the musical shape and substance of the opera. More detailed analytical comment considers Strauss's 'long-range' tonal procedures and his use of key and Motiv for characterisation, allusion and particular expressive purposes. Special features of this guide are a commentary on one of the Strauss Arabella sketchbooks and an investigation of a series of as yet unpublished letters from Strauss to Böhm, Krauss and Fanto which throw light on events leading up to the 1933 premieres in Nazi Germany and Vienna. A wide selection of critical comment shows a developing appreciation of a work which has often been misleadingly censured but which is now accepted for its dramatic, literary and musical merit.
Contents: Dramatis personae -- Strauss and Hofmannsthal: the collaborative background -- Synopsis -- Literary sources -- The Arabella collaboration -- The structure of the opera -- Analysis: technique and expression -- The Act 3 sketchbook -- Premiere and aftermath -- Critical reactions -- An interpretative assessment -- Appendix 1: An additional quartet -- Appendix 2 : The Recordings.
Notes: Includes index.
Subject headings (LCSH): Strauss, Richard, 1864-1949. Arabella.