Jewish Difference and Recovering ‘Commedia’: Erich W. Korngold’s ‘Die tote Stadt’ in Post-First World War Austria

Hsieh, Amanda

doi:10.1093/ml/gcac043

Jewish Difference and Recovering ‘Commedia’: Erich W. Korngold’s ‘Die tote Stadt’ in Post-First World War Austria

Hsieh, Amanda

Authors

Dr Amanda Hsieh amanda.hsieh@durham.ac.uk
Assistant Professor

Abstract

Commedia dell’arte re-emerged in the early twentieth century to become a means for Europe’s assimilated Jews to process the conditions of modernity by non-serious means. Yet, existing scholarship on Erich W. Korngold’s Die tote Stadt tends to focus on the protagonist Paul with respect to the doppelgängers Marie/Marietta, spotlighting the psychodrama of Acts I and III but overlooking the overtly theatrical episodes of Act II’s extended commedia dell’arte sequence. The opera’s ‘Schlager’ (hit songs) offered old-world comfort to its post-First World War Viennese audience. Nevertheless, the commedia dell’arte scenes were significant in terms of advancing an affirmative politics for war-torn Vienna’s assimilated Jews, precisely because of how deliberately noisy they appeared in opposition to the world of Catholic harmony. Placing side by side Wagnerian symbolism and commedia dell’arte—that is, ingredients from Christianity and contemporary popular Jewish theatre—Korngold’s opera asked timely questions of the Jewish citizenry in Austria’s First Republic.

Citation

Hsieh, A. (2022). Jewish Difference and Recovering ‘Commedia’: Erich W. Korngold’s ‘Die tote Stadt’ in Post-First World War Austria. Music and Letters, 103(4), 685-707. https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/gcac043

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jun 28, 2022
Online Publication Date	Jul 7, 2022
Publication Date	2022-11
Deposit Date	Aug 2, 2022
Publicly Available Date	Jan 10, 2023
Journal	Music and Letters
Print ISSN	0027-4224
Electronic ISSN	1477-4631
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	103
Issue	4
Pages	685-707
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/gcac043

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