Center Stage

Operatic Culture and Nation Building in Nineteenth-Century Central Europe

Philipp Ther

• Publisher: Purdue University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781557536754
• eBook ISBN: 9781612493305
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

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, Bed?ich Smetana, Stanis?aw Moniuszko, Antonín Dvo?ák, 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.

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 network of opera theaters which could accommodate far more spectators than today’s theaters, thanks to large standing-room areas. This network was particularly dense in Central Europe. The opera theaters were opulently decorated, both inside and out, and provided spectacular entertainment night after night. While in the eighteenth century it was mainly princes who had new, luxurious opera theaters built, in the nineteenth century, they were commissioned by the nobility and an ascending middle class. Active involvement in opera had particular cachet in countries and cities with no royal court or independent sovereignty. As regional social elites strove for emancipation from the imperial centers, opera became a sign of prestige for culturally ascendant cities and aspiring national movements. This book investigates and describes this institutional and cultural dynamic which eventually even reached across the Atlantic.

From a financial point of view, the institution and the art form of opera was always a luxury. But it was a luxury that many people were willing and able to pay for. Not just the bourgeoisie, with whom opera is often associated, but people from all walks of life flocked to the theater. Contemporary reports tell us that servant girls, craftsmen, and even manual laborers filled the cheaper areas in the gallery and at the rear of the orchestra level. Thus the opera catered to a far broader public than it does today.² Audience members in the more expensive areas were there to see and be seen and to demonstrate their distinction.³ This social function of a visit to the opera was so important that it did not become customary to extinguish all the lights during performances until the end of the century. Spectators’ white evening garments shone in the semi-gloom of the auditorium and many eyes remained fixed on the visitors’ boxes rather than on the stage.

What took place on the stage, however, could match any of today’s Hollywood blockbusters. Live horses galloped past, rain literally came down in buckets, and Bengal light created fantastic color effects. While these performances can no longer be experienced firsthand, contemporary arts journalism conveyed a good impression of how Lohengrin entered the stage with his shining sword, the pyramids of Aida were revealed, and Orpheus slipped down into the underworld to the amazement of the audience. Opera invited people into a world of illusions. Daily newspapers advertised forthcoming performances and documented the public’s responses to previous shows. Performance schedules had more in common with today’s cinema programs than a sophisticated opera repertoire, aiming above all to fulfill the demand for novelty. The concept of cultivating “classic” pieces did not gain wide currency until the late nineteenth century.⁴ A standard repertoire of the kind familiar today became established around 1900, at first in Europe and then in the rest of the world. The twenty-first century continues in cultural history terms, then, where the nineteenth century ended—another reason to look more closely at the great age of opera.

Opera was also a matter of politics, especially at times of civilian unrest and increased state repression. Both the institution of the opera and the art form gained an added political dimension and provided more than mere diversion and entertainment. Opera and the arts in general not only reflected the times but actually stimulated change. This can be best appreciated by considering opera from three different perspectives. First, analyzing the opera as an institution provides insight into the political and social conflicts and power relations within the respective societies. A second perspective comes to light on considering the opera theater and its auditorium filled with people from different social backgrounds and with different loyalties. The view of the opera from inside offers a vivid picture of the social barriers and divides that affected the societies and the ideals and utopias they cherished. A third aspect presents itself behind the curtain: repertoires, performance practice, and the music itself communicate much about the changing aesthetic tastes and values of European cultures.

Opera’s relevance to political and social developments is illustrated by the introduction of mass scenes, which became a popular feature after the emergence of the French Grand Opéra in the Vormärz era between 1815 and 1848. In these scenes, choruses function as people’s representatives on the stage and determine the course of the narrative action. Some operas, such as Rossini’s William Tell, forced any ruling-class members of the audience to witness how common characters positively stole—and sang—the show from them.⁵ This occurred at a time when modern mass society did not exist beyond centers such as Paris and Vienna and when national movements were just emerging. The notorious censorship of the nineteenth century, which was particularly rife in the period before 1848, is a clear indication that the dramatic arts were felt to hold explosive potential. Reactionary rulers feared that opera might politically mobilize their subjects by showing members of their own class or nation singing, fighting, and suffering on stage. The content and meaning of opera works are therefore of just as much historical interest as the social history of opera.

One should nevertheless resist drawing hasty conclusions about an opera’s effect on the basis of its content. How operas were received depended on a variety of factors, including audience expectations, composition, and the success of each individual performance. Interpreting operas as historical sources therefore requires particular care. As any regular operagoer knows, a successful performance is not easily guaranteed. It may take just one soloist to drop out for audiences to reject a show. For this reason, only a few performances had a verifiable and direct influence on political and social events. Nevertheless, nineteenth-century intellectuals, from Hegel to Max Weber, believed in the far-reaching effects of opera thanks to its exulted status as a synthesis of the arts, as a Gesamtkunstwerk. Opera, they believed, could edify, emotionally educate, and mobilize audiences, particularly for the cause of the nation. This belief informed the work of central European composers including Richard Wagner (1813–1883), Stanisław Moniuszko (1819–1872) and Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884). Social elites also placed high hopes in the opera as an institution where audiences could be unified in their enjoyment of art, regardless of their social standing. Consequently, opera became associated with utopias of artistic and social unity.

Such utopias were a main ingredient of modern nationalism. This partially explains why opera was so closely linked to national movements in many European countries. Especially in Central Europe, and subsequently in other parts of continental Europe, opera came under “the spell of nations” and their respective nationalisms. Opera was increasingly regarded as an expression of the nation or, as Richard Wagner put it, of the “spirit of the people,” the Volksgeist. The people that Wagner had in mind (Volk in German, narod in Slavic languages) was a nation connected by cultural bonds and a common history, and not defined by the boundaries and political organization of the state it inhabited.⁶

In the German lands and other parts of Central Europe, and later in Western Europe, opera became endowed with a national identity. This nationalist appropriation of opera had a deep impact on cultural practices. In the opera, it affected repertoire, plots, singing language, and stage production. The process by which opera was made national can be regarded as a form of cultural nationalization. The key agents of this process were not nation-states, but music publishers, members of the audience, and composers of Wagner’s generation from various countries. When this book refers to the nationalization of opera, then, not the establishment of state control over opera is implied, but the process of making it more German, Czech, Polish, Russian, or French.

The widespread nationalization of opera may seem paradoxical at first. After all, music theater was an international cultural practice and almost synonymous with Italian opera until well into the nineteenth century. Yet, especially after the 1848 revolution, national traditions, singing languages, and even a new opera genre—the national opera—became established in Central Europe. Accordingly, some of the central questions this book addresses are why this process of cultural nationalization occurred, how far it went, and who supported it.

In keeping with the Andersonian approach to nationalism studies, the nation is understood here as a construct and not as a given.⁷ This book explores the creative, artistic dimension of nation building in which composers played a key role. Especially in Central Europe, the arts, including the opera, were crucial for defining and demarcating the nation. This cultural nation-building was characteristic of the German lands, Bohemia, Poland, and other areas of Central Europe.⁸ The term cultural or musical nationalism is used to denote the ideology of a national movement communicated via cultural or artistic media or more specifically via music. To analyze how masses were mobilized by these cultural means involves inquiry in the field of social history. Nationalism was of course not the only political issue that was negotiated in opera. Class awareness and an aristocratic, civic, or urban consciousness were also conveyed.

With these different levels of history—institutions, society, aesthetics, and music—this book interweaves strands of social and cultural history. In view of the range and inconsistency of literature available, this is not the place to attempt a binding definition of the concept of culture. Through the lens of “new cultural history,” opera in the nineteenth century may be regarded as a cultural phenomenon in the anthropological sense; as a system of symbols and interpretations via which basic human needs and forms of expression can be deciphered.⁹ This book is, however, also concerned with cultural history in a more narrow sense, in examining music as an art form and opera as a historical source. When considering opera as a historian and music lover, one must bear in mind an important difference between opera in history and today. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were only a few theaters...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword
• Part One
• Part Two: The Royal Theater in Dresden
• Part Three: The Polish Theater in Lemberg
• Part Four: The Czech National Theater in Prague
• Part Five: Comparison, Cultural Transfers, and Networks
• Bibliography and Sources
• Acknowledgments
• Index