RESEARCH TRIP TO DRESDEN, APRIL 2019

Dresden was the place of the world premieres of the most of operas created in collaboration between Strauss and Hofmannsthal. Among those that interest me, Elektra (1909), Der Rosenkavalier (1911); Ägyptische Helena (1928), Arabella (1933) were shown first time precisely there. I already referred to the history of the premiere of Arabella in my paper for the Moscow conference in April 2018.

The fragments from the reviews can be found in the famous book of Franzpeter Messmer (Kritiken zu den Uraufführungen der Bühnenwerke von Richard Strauss. Pfaffenhofen: W. Ludwig, 1989). But he concentrated on the reception of the music, and the issues of the performance could find but a marginal place in the volume. This is, however, the case also with most of the reviews which can be found in Semperoper. But one can find there much more.

In Dresden Opera they collected the clippings on the events which took place there and glued them in the big albums which now are available for the research. Most of the clippings derive from Dresden newspapers, but there are some from other places. The main value of the collection dwells in the fact that it reflects not only the premieres which usually the historians of theatre pay attention to. Actually, newspapers reflected also the appearance of the new performers in the old productions. Dresden was often the place of the festivals of Richard Strauss’s music, which of course were also reviewed. Finally, the known operas appeared in the new versions, which the press also responded to.

Following the life of some of Strauss’s titles on the Dresden stage, one can notice interesting things. Thus, for example, an undoubtful breakthrough was the world premiere of Elektra on the Dresden stage in 1909. It was a breakthrough also in the sense of performance. The premiere reviews praise the commitment Annie Krull who was the very first Elektra. But from this praise it is actually hard to conclude anything except that she was able to manage the vocal difficulties of the part. The reviewers mention that she was also persuasive in the sense of the drama acting, but these words are too general and unpersonal. Why? Were the reviewers just unsensitive to this aspect of the operatic performance, didn’t they had a language to grasp it?

But when in 1915 this part is performed by Marie Gutheil-Schoder, the newspapers suddenly write that the steps of Dresden Opera towards the reform of the operatic performance used to be but partial, which is now clear in comparison with new Elektra. All the reviewers feel themselves obliged to mention that they evaluate Gutheil-Schoder’s achievement while understanding that vocally she was not so good as her predecessors. Sometimes it is done even in a rather merciless way. But what the reviewers write about the part as a whole betrays a great impression it produced on them. They write, that the Strauss’s idea was fulfilled for the first time, bringing together music, poetry, theatre art and dance. The image Gutheil-Schoder created is named „maenadic”, „inspired by the orphic spirit of dance” (Dresdner Nachrichten, 10.5.1915). Is it possible, that this element – which both Hofmannsthal and Strauss somehow made to serve a patriarchal myth – became the dominant in the performance?

In 1927 Gutheil-Schoder directed a new version of Elektra in Dresden. Newspapers didn’t evaluate it as a great achievement. Reviewers suggested that it was impossible to transfer Gutheil-Schoder’s own dramatic talent to another performer of the title part. Couldn’t it, however, happen that precisely the expectation of the repetition of the success anno 1915 prevented the critics to appreciate the values of this production? Elektra belongs to the first steps of Schoder in the profession of directing. She then staged the opera performances till 1933 (died in 1935). Even though reviewers didn’t like her staging in 1927, Richard Strauss appreciated her first steps in directing very much. By the end of that year the name of Gutheil-Schoder appears many times on the pages of his correspondence with Hofmannsthal. It is precisely her whom they want to trust the work with the performers of Ägyptische Helena, believing that this way the premiere could be rescued (sic! for Helena in Dresden they couldn’t get the singers Hofmannsthal counted on; first of all it turned out to be impossible to engage Maria Jeritza for the title part).

However, this important role of Gutheil-Schoder in the later productions of the Strauss – Hofmannsthal operas remains underestimated. Generally, what did directing mean for this singer? Was it just a compensatory activity in that time when she already couldn’t sing? That this not necessarily happens just this way, was recently shown by the book on Anna Bahr-Mildenburg’s staging (Martensen, Karin. Die Frau Führt Regie: Anna Bahr-Mildenburg Als Regisseurin Des Ring Des Nibelungen, 2013). Probably one day it will be possible to restore the relevant part of Gutheil-Schoder’s legacy, too.

At the moment, I am making a remark for myself, that Gutheil-Schoder’s participation in the premiere of the ballet (sic!) Josephslegende in Vienna Opera, surely, was not just an accident…