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‘Between Moscow and New York’:

Richard Strauss's Die ägyptische Helena

in Cultural-Historical ContextPhilip GraydonVersion of record first published: 25 Nov 2010.

To cite this article: Philip Graydon (2010): ‘Between Moscow and New York’: Richard Strauss's Die

ägyptische Helena in Cultural-Historical Context, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 135:2,

357-404

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‘Between Moscow and New York’:

Richard Strauss’s Die a ¨ gyptische Helena inCultural-Historical Context

PHILIP GRAYDON

Particularly in scenes like Klyta ¨mnestra’s dream, the sister’s recognition [Elektra’s of Orest], [her] redemption through dance, Menelas’s spiritual transformation, Apollo’s kiss

(in Daphne ) and Jupiter’s farewell to the human world, my Greek operas have created

musical symbols that may be considered as the final fulfilment of Greek longing.

Richard Strauss (1945)1

If anything, the present is so mythical Á I can’t think of any other expression for an

existence which, in itself, takes place in front of such tremendous horizons Á for this

engulfment by millennia, for the saturation of our very being by East and West, for this

I would like to thank Leon Botstein, Anthony Carver, Bryan Gilliam, Jan Smaczny and Charles Youmans for their helpful comments and advice during the gestation of this article.

Examples 1a, 2a, 3b, 4b, 5, 6 and 7b # Copyright 1928 by Adolph Furstner. U.S. CopyrightRenewed. Copyright assigned 1943 to Hawkes & Son (London) Ltd. (a Boosey & Hawkes company)for the World excluding Germany, Italy, Portugal and the former territories of the U.S.S.R. (excluding Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). Reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.

Example 3a # Copyright 1916 by Adolph Furstner. U.S. Copyright Renewed. Copyright assigned1943 to Hawkes & Son (London) Ltd. (a Boosey & Hawkes company) for the World excluding Germany, Italy, Portugal and the former territories of the U.S.S.R. (excluding Estonia, Latvia, and

Lithuania). Reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.Example 4a # Copyright 1889 by Adolph Furstner. U.S. Copyright Renewed. Copyright assigned

1943 to Hawkes & Son (London) Ltd. (a Boosey & Hawkes company) for the World excluding Germany, Italy, Portugal and the former territories of the U.S.S.R. (excluding Estonia, Latvia, andLithuania). Reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.1 ‘Besonders meine griechischen Opern haben in Scenen [sic ] wie Klyta ¨mnestras Traum, Erkennung

der Schwester, Erlosung im Tanz, der seelischen Wandlung des Menelas, im Kusse Apollos (inDaphne), in Jupiters Abschied von der Welt den Menschen Tonsymbole geschaffen, die als letzteErfullung griechischer Sehnsucht gelten durfen.’ Richard Strauss, ‘Betrachtungen zu Joseph Gregors‘‘Weltgeschichte des Theaters’’, 4. Februar (1945)’, Strauss, Dokumente: Aufsa ¨ tze, Aufzeichnungen,Vorworte, Reden, Briefe , ed. Ernst Krause (Leipzig, 1980), 103 Á 9 (p. 105). All translations are my ownunless otherwise stated.

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monstrous inner breadth, for these raging inner tensions, this ‘Here’ and ‘Elsewhere’ thatcharacterizes our lives. It is not possible to capture this in bourgeois dialogues. Let us write

mythological opera, it is the truest of all forms, believe me.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal (c.1929)2

THE above statements, which serve as epigrammatic signposts for this article,facilitate the development of three fundamental themes: first, the centrality of classical antiquity to Richard Strauss’s musico-dramatic vision (of a total of 15works, a third Á Elektra , Ariadne auf Naxos , Die a ¨ gyptische Helena (The Egyptian Helen ), Daphne and Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae ) Á are directly basedon subjects from Greek mythology); secondly, the efficacy of that vision as anartistic conduit of reality; and thirdly, as Glenn Watkins noted, the ability of art,and especially music, to act as a ‘societal barometer’ in times of national strife.3

Apropos Die a ¨ gyptische Helena (1927), the third and final theme takes precedence.This opera, to a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal based on the legend of Helen of Troy, was conceived and realized in the decade following the end of theFirst World War (and, with it, the end of imperium in Germany and Austria)against an insecure and often turbulent political and socio-cultural landscape.Though perceived failings in Act 2 were addressed after Hofmannsthal ’s death inthe creation of a telescoped version of the opera, undertaken by conductorClemens Krauss and producer Lothar Wallerstein (with the permission and fullco-operation of Strauss, who also composed some new music),4 the focus of my discussion will be the opera as originally conceived by Hofmannsthal and Strauss.5

2 ‘Denn wenn sie etwas ist, diese Gegenwart, so ist sie mythisch Á ich weiß kein anderen Ausdruck fureine Existenz, die sich vor so ungeheuren Horizonten vollzieht Á fur dieses Umgebensein mit Jahrtausenden, fur dies Hereinfluten von Orient und Okzident in unser Ich, fur diese ungeheureinnere Weite, fur dieses rasenden inneren Spannungen, dieses Hier und Anderswo, das die Signaturunseres Lebens ist. Es ist nicht moglich, dies in burgerlichen Dialogen aufzufangen. Machen wirmythologische Opern, es ist die wahrste aller Formen. Sie konnen mir glauben.’ Hugo vonHofmannsthal, ‘Die a ¨ gyptische Helena ’, Insel-Almanach (1929), 89 Á 107 (pp. 106 Á 7). This essay,

incorporating an imaginary conversation between Hofmannsthal and Strauss, is reprinted in Hugovon Hofmannsthal, Erfundene Gespra ¨ che und Briefe , ed. Ellen Ritter, Sa ¨mtliche Werke, 31 (Frankfurtam Main, 1991), 216 Á 27.

3 Glenn Watkins, Proof Through the Night: Music and the Great War (Berkeley, CA, 2003), 15.4 This incarnation became known as the ‘Vienna version’, and was first performed at the 1933 Salzburg

Festival.5 It could be argued that the 1933 shortening, which consisted of two cuts and three brief textual-

musical inserts, in effect superseded the original. However, latter-day attention has centred on the1928 version (two relatively recent concert performances in New York ’s Avery Fisher Hall Á the firstin 1998 and the other, the subject of a subsequent Telarc live CD recording, in 2002 Á instancing thistrend). In so far as is relevant, brief discussion of the inadequacies of the 1933 version follows in thepresent article in order to point to the superiority of the Hofmannsthal original.

358 PHILIP GRAYDON



Premiered in 1928, Die a ¨ gyptische Helena charted the circumstances faced by pan-Germanic society (the phrase used here in its interwar sense) with striking ve rite .Though it lacked the urban scenery, the up-to-the-minute styling ( pace Hofmannsthal’s call for ball-gown-styled couture during discussions regarding its

staging)6 and the jazz-infused, angular simplicity of contemporary Zeitopern , Die a ¨ gyptische Helena tracked its times, shunning in form the pacy ephemerality of thelatter for a more timeless approach.

Nonetheless, Hofmannsthal’s and Strauss’s return to Greek mythology was onestrongly tempered with contemporary concerns, not least those brought on by theaftermath of the First World War and early Weimar-era modernism. Indeed, thatfocus on the current was initiated during the War by Strauss, who envisaged thecreation of a ‘political-satirical-parodistic operetta ’ through the use of certaincontemporary archetypal figures (‘the profiteer as a Maecenas, the spy, the diplomat,

Prussian and Austrian each against the other, and yet each with the other’).

7

By thesummer of 1918 the setting for the proposed ‘operetta ’ had changed to antiquity,following a lively exchange of views between composer and librettist concerning works by figures such as Lucian, Plautus and Jakob Burkhardt.8 A year later, Straussexpressed a wish for a ‘political satire in late-Grecian garb, with [Maria] Jeritza as a hetera from Lucian Á the operetta-styled governments of the present time cry out formusical treatment and ridiculing ’.9 Hofmannsthal, who toyed during late 1919 withtwo mythological topics Á one on the figure of Danae, the other on Helen of Troy Á sent Strauss a scenario for a ballet-divertissement and his sketches for Danae oder der Vernunftheirat (Danae, or The Marriage of Convenience ), an ironic satire that centred

on Austria ’s postwar position. While potent vis-a `-vis possibilities, Hofmannsthal’sDanae draft was too inchoate with respect to the practicalities of staging andtheatrical flow. Dramaturgical problems aside, it was rejected by Strauss as he wascourting another potential librettist (Alfred Kerr) for his projected (mythological)operetta Á the unfinished Peregrinus Proteus Á while working on Schlagobers (Whipped Cream ), a parodistic ballet of his own.10

6 Hofmannsthal to Strauss, 13 October 1927. A Working Friendship: The Correspondence between Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal , trans. Hanns Hammelmann and Ewald Osers (London,

1961; hereafter Correspondence ), 445.7 Strauss to Hofmannsthal, 5 June 1916. Ibid ., 250 Á 1.8 See ibid ., 108. On 12 June, Strauss requested Hofmannsthal to read ‘Plautus’s Miles gloriosus (in

Lenz, Volume II) and also the chapter on Sparta in the first volume of J. Burckhardt’s History of Greek Civilisation ’, adding ‘I hardly think there could be a better setting for an operetta than this latedown-at-heel Sparta.’ Strauss to Hofmannsthal, 12 June 1918. Ibid ., 302.

9 Strauss to Hofmannsthal, 27 June 1919. Richard Strauss Á Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Briefwechsel (5thedn, Zurich, 1978), 447; Correspondence , 328 (translation modified). Maria Jeritza went on to act asveritable muse for the title role in Die a ¨ gyptische Helena , which she performed in the Austrianpremiere in Vienna on 11 June 1928.

10 Hofmannsthal’s Danae draft later served as the basis for the opera Die Liebe der Danae , completedbetween 1938 and 1940 by Strauss and Joseph Gregor.

‘BETWEEN MOSCOW AND NEW YORK ’ 359



That the Danae draft initially failed to spur the composer’s creativity in the periodaround 1919 gives a vital clue regarding the dynamic of his relationship withHofmannsthal at that time. Following Strauss’s appointment as co-director at theVienna Staatsoper (a position he held until 1924), his temporary residence in the

Austrian capital for part of the year was a source of acute discomfort to the VienneseHofmannsthal, who had previously preferred to keep Strauss at arm’s length on a personal level.

Compounded further by other commitments and a fundamental lack of agreementon prospective projects, the Hofmannsthal Á Strauss collaboration underwent a temporary hiatus that spanned from the end of the War into the middle of thefollowing decade (an interval that, incidentally, saw a fertile phase of experimenta-tion on Strauss’s part). While the composer worked on various ballet projects and a solo-opera project, Intermezzo (1923) Á a thinly veiled autobiographical sex comedy

based on an incident in Strauss’s marriageÁ

the collaboration deliberated over anapparently minor arrangement of Beethoven’s ballet Die Ruinen von Athen (incorporating Die Gescho ¨ pfe des Prometheus ). Although this particular project hasbeen thoroughly explored elsewhere,11 its links with Die a ¨ gyptische Helena should bereferred to here, not least the fact that it too reflected the widespread redefinition of the German Kulturnation typical of the postwar period.

Despite its similarly mythological cast, Die a ¨ gyptische Helena remains, at base, a reflection on basic humanity: a theatrical essay on modern life and love, on conjugalinfidelity and reconciliation, told through the medium of myth. Helena, whocommits adultery with Paris and absconds to Troy, is retrieved by her husbandMenelas, who seeks ultimate vengeance and intends to kill her. On their return toSparta, they are shipwrecked on the island of the sorceress Aithra Á off the coast of Egypt Á who gives Menelas a potion of oblivion to eliminate any memory of hiswife’s faithlessness. Aithra tricks Menelas into thinking that Paris merely took a phantom Helena, while his real (and faithful) wife remained on the island all along.

The second act opens with Helena ’s celebrated aria ‘Zweite Brautnacht’ (‘Second Wedding Night’), but doubts arise in Menelas’s mind as to the veracity of Aithra ’stale. For her part, Helena begins to realize that a true marriage cannot rest ondeception, even if revelation of the truth could result in her death. Offering him a

potion of remembrance, she risks her life and is transformed, thereby converting herhusband from vengeful cuckold to forgiving spouse. In the end Menelas reconcilesHelena ’s past with her innate probity (while also resolving his own positive andnegative aspects) and their marriage emerges strengthened anew.

As in all great works of art, though, the universal cloaks the particular. In animaginary conversation with Strauss that appeared in the opera ’s original programme

11 See Philip Graydon, ‘‘‘Ruckkehr in die Heimat’’: Postwar Cultural Politics and the 1924 Reworking of Beethoven’s Die Ruinen von Athen by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’, Musical

Quarterly , 88 (2005), 630 Á 71.

360 PHILIP GRAYDON



booklet, Hofmannsthal implored the composer to picture the opera ’s post-Trojan War plot ‘as if it had happened two or three years ago somewhere between Moscow and New York ’12 (that is, in central Europe and, more specifically, Austria andGermany). Thus, Hofmannsthal made apparent the correlation between the Trojan

War and the First World War Á and their respective aftermaths Á for bothcontemporary audiences and posterity alike. By linking a mythological past with a mythicized present, Die a ¨ gyptische Helena explored the postwar dialectic between the

mythic and the modern. For Hofmannsthal and Strauss, modernity was fundamen-tally grounded in myth: the present stood as both the reflection and the continuationof an existence that was transhistorical or, indeed, suprahistorical.

This article discusses first how Hofmannsthal’s and Strauss’s profound awarenessof the contemporary relevance of myth enabled them to forge a stage work bothexpressly aware and uniquely representative of its historical moment. As a matter of

course, focus then turns to the often exaggerated complexities of the libretto for whatwas, until recently, one of Strauss’s most neglected stage works. Taking a detailedlook at the music for Helena from the perspective of intertextuality, the article closesby offering a ‘third way ’ beyond the usual threadbare binary discourse on modernopera in Weimar Germany (Expressionism versus Neue Sachlichkeit ).

Hofmannsthal, Strauss and modern mythology

No myth can come into being without the deeds and sufferings of the individual: that is

why the events since 1914 were required, so that the [dark] forces [ ‘die Ma ¨chte’] could

themselves turn into myth.13

This was not the only time Hofmannsthal would refer to ‘events since 1914’ inconnection with Die a ¨ gyptische Helena . Commenting in the Helena essay on theopera ’s genesis in his mind’s eye, he wrote:

12 Hofmannsthal, ‘Die a ¨ gyptische Helena ’, 95.13 ‘Ohne Taten und Leiden der Individuen entsteht kein Mythos: daher bedurfte es der Vorga nge seit

1914, damit die Ma ¨chte sich zum Mythos gestalten.’ Hugo von Hofmannsthal, ‘‘‘ Ad me ipsum’’’, Aufzeichnungen , ed. Herbert Steiner, Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben, 15 (Frankfurt am Main,1959), 211 Á 44 (p. 233). As Larry Vaughan points out, during his career Hofmannsthal operatedwith two distinct ‘strains’ of myth: the first (‘dark forces’, ‘bad myth’ or ‘eternal repetition’ Á whichHofmannsthal rejected c. 1906) was myth which preserved the past, ensuring its own reification inthe process. The second type, redemptive myth (or, as Hofmannsthal also termed it, ‘myth on a higher level’), resulted from action and deed, but was often achieved only through suffering in orderto alleviate man (and woman) from external forces and redeem human existence. As Hofmannsthalnoted: ‘The mythical on a higher level is realized in Helena ’ (‘Das Mythische in hoherer Spha ¨rerealisiert in Helena ’; Hofmannsthal, ‘‘‘ Ad me ipsum’’’, 240). See Larry Vaughan, ‘Myth and Society in Hofmannsthal’s ‘‘Die a ¨gyptische Helena ’’’, Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift , 36 (1986),331 Á 42 (p. 335).




From 1920, a subject, a grouping of figures, reflected itself Á glittering and intangible, like

partly concealed, running water Á in my imagination, precisely this subject that has now

been realized: that homeward journey of Helena and Menelas. My imagination had

grasped a kind of inquisitiveness: it was based on the mythical characters as living people of

whose lives one knows a part, but is dependent for an important time span on conjecture. Onthat night, as the Greeks invaded the burning Troy (it seems rather closer to us than to the pre- 1914 generation to imagine the horror of such a night ) Á on that night, Menelas must have

found his wife in that burning palace and have dragged her out amidst collapsing walls, this

woman who was his beloved wife, as well as the most beautiful woman in the world, the

reason for this war, these ten terrible years, this plain full of dead men and these fires, and

yet simultaneously the widow of Paris, and the lover of ten or twelve of Priam ’s other sons,

who all lay there, either dead or dying Á What a situation for a married man!14

After drawing attention to a report by Odysseus’ son Telemachus who, passing

through Sparta a year later, spied Menelas and Helena living in conjugal bliss Á a phenomenon recorded in the fourth song of Homer’s Odyssey Á Hofmannsthalproffered: ‘How extraordinary it is to handle such a notorious and horrible incidentin this light-hearted manner Á and the word rolls off the tongue Á how modern Á

how near to the forms of expression of our time.’15 The librettist then highlightedthe thesis put forth in the surviving portion of Stesichorus’ Palinode , where Paris hadactually carried a phantom away to Troy while the real Helena had resided in Egypt(an explanation subsequently carried over into Euripides’ Helena ).

Hofmannsthal took little more from Euripides’ ‘fairy-tale play ’ (Ma ¨rchenstuck ’)16

than the two Helenas (following the latter, he initially envisaged both being portrayed on stage together). Moreover, the crucial early Á and lasting Á influence onhis conception was Johann Jakob Bachofen’s Das Mutterrecht (1862). With its

14 ‘ Aber seit 1920 spiegelte sich in der Phantasie Á glitzernd und ungreifbar, wie halbverdeckt fließendes Wasser Á ein Stoff, eine Gruppierung von Figuren: eben dieser nunmehr ausgefuhrte Stoff: jeneHeimreise der Helena und des Menelas. Eine Art Neugierde hatte sich der Phantasie bema ¨chtigt, siewar auf die mythischen Gestalten gerichtet wie auf lebende Personen, von deren Leben man einen Teilkennt, fur eine wichtige Zeitspanne aber auf Kombination angewiesen ist. In jener Nacht, als dieGriechen in das brennende Troja eindrangen (es liegt uns einigerma ßen na ¨her, uns die Schrecken einer

solchen Nacht vorzustellen, als den Menschen vor 1914)Á

in jener Nacht muß Menelas in diesembrennenden Pala ¨ste seine Frau gefunden und zwischen einsturtzenden Mauern herausgetragen haben,diese Frau, die seine geliebte Gattin und nebenbei die schonste Frau der Welt, die Ursache diesesKrieges, dieser furchtbaren zehn Jahre, dieser Ebene voll totere Ma nner und dieses Brandes war, undnebenbei noch die Witwe des Paris und die Freundin von zehn oder zwolf anderen Sohnen desPriamos, die nun alle tot oder sterbend dalegen Á Welche Situation fur einen Ehemann!’Hofmannsthal, ‘Die a ¨ gyptische Helena ’, 90 Á 1 (emphasis added).

15 ‘ Wie erstaunlich, in dieser leichtem Art ein so beruhmtes und schreckliches Ereignis zu behandeln Á

und das Wort dra ¨ngt sich auf die Zunge Á wie modern Á wie nahe den Ausdrucksformen unsererZeit.’ Ibid ., 91 Á 2.

16 Hofmannsthal, Reden-Aufsa ¨ tze 2 , Gesammelte Werke in zehn Einzelba ¨nden, 10, ed. Bernd Schoeller,in consultation with Rudolf Hirsch (Frankfurt am Main, 1979), 256.

362 PHILIP GRAYDON



emphasis on the rights inherent in motherhood as purportedly recognized by ancientsociety, Bachofen’s tome fundamentally underwrote Die a ¨ gyptische Helena Á a libretto driven by the symbolic connotations of the notions of female empowermentand the importance of marital union for the common good. But the counterpoise

represented by Asiatic and Greek worlds in Bachofen’s work was not merely co-optedby Hofmannsthal to give his rendering of the myth added symbolic weight. AsBachofen explained, this very dichotomy had underpinned the Trojan War: ‘Thefirst great encounter between the Asiatic and Greek worlds is represented as a strugglebetween aphroditean-hetaeristic and hereditary-marital principles, the cause of the Trojan War led back to the defilement of the marital bed. ’17

To sum up, Hofmannsthal presented the same antagonism between theantinomies (his term) of Occident and Orient in his portrayal of Menelas andHelena; for Hofmannsthal, though, this conflict underpinned not only the Trojan

War of the distant mythical past, but also the recent world war of the immediatemythicized present. In notes sketched in 1927 for his imaginary conversation withStrauss in the Helena essay, Hofmannsthal elaborated on the Orient/Occidentdichotomy between Menelas and Helena, but was more direct regarding its relevancefor the era in which the opera was conceived:

Letter I

b What are individuals? What are people, who are destined for each other Á what are they

to each other? To what extent are they able to become dialectically comprehensible to each

other? In everyday life, they hear another voice, one that consists of a combination of

many Á underneath everyday talk Á

a Consider history in a modern sense Á the Great War Á the experiences in between all the

uncertainty that happens between individuals, the chaotic element that the body brings to

the spirit Á that is never directly expressible, the change of distances between union and

extreme distance: the truly individual life Á only to present it indirectly.18

17 ‘Die erste grosse Begegnung der asiatischen und der griechischen Welt wird als ein Kampf desaphroditisch-heta ¨risch mit dem hera ¨isch-ehelichen Prinzip dargestellt, die Veranlassung des troischenKrieges aufdie Verletzung des Ehebetteszuruckgefuhrt.’ Johann Jakob Bachofen, DerMythusvonOrient

und Occident: Eine Metaphysik der Alten Welt: Aus der Werken von J. J. Bachofen , ed. Manfred Schroeter,with an introduction by Alfred Bauemler (Munich, 1926), §21ff. Quoted in Ingeborg Beyer-Ahlert,‘Entstehung ’, Hofmannsthal, Die a ¨ gyptische Helena: Opern- und Singspielpla ¨ ne , ed. Beyer-Ahlert,Sa ¨mtliche Werke, 25/2 (0Operndichtungen , 3/2) (Frankfurt am Main, 2001), 152 Á 88 (pp. 159 Á 60).

18 ‘Brief I / b Was sind das Individuen? Was sind Menschen, die fur einander Schicksal sind Á was sindsie einander? Inwiefern konnen sie einander dialektisch fasslich werden? Im Alltagsleben horen sieeine andere Stimme, eine aus vielen combinierte Á unter dem Alltagsgerede Á / a Nehmen Sie dieGeschichte fur modern Á den großen Krieg Á die Erlebnisse dazwischen all das Unsichere waszwischen Individuen vorgeht, das Chaotische das der Leib uber die Seele bringt Á das nie direcktausdruckbare, der Wechsel der Distanzen, zwischen Vereinigung und hochster Ferne: das wahreIndividualleben Á das nur indirekt zu geben.’ Ellen Ritter, ‘Die a ¨gyptische Helena: Varianten undErla

¨uterungen’, Hofmannsthal,

Erfundene Gespra ¨

che und Briefe , ed. Ritter, 519 Á 38 (p. 523).




In the printed version of their conversation, Hofmannsthal has Strauss announce:‘ Yes, it is an opera. It appears that way to me, at least, though perhaps not to anyoneelse. Have you related the subject matter to anybody yet?’19 The absence of any comment on Hofmannsthal’s part points to an answer in the negative. However, a

draft dated 20 March 1928 suggests otherwise:

Only one, completely by chance. A French writer, [Paul] Geraldy, the author of Aime e and Robert et Marianne , whom I encountered completely by chance on the street the day before yesterday. However, I did not relate the subject to him in the same form as I haverelated it to you, not with the names ‘Helena ’ and ‘Menelas’, but with numerousirrelevant changes, as an event from our time.

How is that possible?Very easily. It is only outward appearances that change. I set up the situation of the

Trojan War as an example.20

Despite taking a degree of artistic licence (Hofmannsthal had actually met Geraldy in August 1923), this fascinating admission Á tellingly omitted from the printed text of the essay Á directly evidences the conceptual and aesthetic locus of Hofmannsthal’s‘social’ opera.

But perhaps the librettist deliberately excised the very passage from his draft thatwould have clarified what he, undoubtedly, wished a contemporary audience todiscern for itself: that behind this parable of a modern marriage lay a parable onmodern, pan-Germanic society split down the seam between radical and con-

servative, ‘new ’ and ‘old’, Left and Right, and between latent and actual civil war.The threefold catastrophe of the lost war, an expunged empire and crippling postwarreparations plunged Germany into a four-year period of civil and political unrestdistinguished, as Fritz Stern aptly describes, by a ‘dual revolution Á from above andalso from below ’.21 In the end, the move from autocratic monarchy to sovereignrepublic was achieved without a ‘true’ coup, but the 1919 Weimar Constitutioncould not impose democracy on an inherently reactionary society. On the domesticfront, German politics between 1920 and 1923 was thus marked by a dizzying succession of changes of governing coalition Á most often comprising SocialDemocrats (SPD), the German Democratic Party (DDP) and the Catholic Centre

19 ‘ Ja, es ist eine Oper. Wenigstens eine Oper fur mich, vielleicht nicht fur einen anderen. Sie habenden Stoff doch keinen Menschen erza ¨hlt?’ Hofmannsthal, ‘Die a ¨ gyptische Helena ’, 104.

20 ‘Doch, einem ganz zufa ¨llig. Einem franzosischen Dichter, Geraldy, dem Autor von Aimee undRobert et Marianne, dem ich vorgestern zufa ¨llig auf der Strasse begegnete. Aber ich ihm den Stoff nicht in der gleichen Form erza ¨hlt wie Ihnen, nicht mit den Namen Helena und Menelas sondernmit vielen aber unwesentlichen Vera ¨nderungen, als eine Begebenheit aus unseren Tagen. / Wie ist dasmoglich? / Sehr leicht. Es sind nur A ¨ ußerlichkeiten, die sich vera ¨ndern. An Stelle des trojanischenKrieges setze ich beispielweise.’ Ritter, ‘Die a ¨gyptische Helena ’, 527.

21 Fritz Stern,Five Germanys Have I Known

(New York, 2006), 52.

364 PHILIP GRAYDON



Party Á further undermined by a gradually marginalized yet resilient Left and a militant, anti-democratic Right, whose terrorist activities occasionally bordered onwholesale subversion.22

A measure of that determination on the part of the wider Left can be gauged by its

self-appointed role as midwife to the Weimar Republic itself, hastily proclaimed on9 November 1918 by the Social Democratic leader Philipp Scheidemann in order todefuse a similar pronouncement by the radical Spartacist Party. On the previous day,a separate republic was declared in Bavaria by the Independent Socialist Party leaderKurt Eisner. But despite the familiar ‘November Revolution’ moniker, the GermanLeft never constituted a united front: the very day after Scheidemann’s proclamation,the new chancellor, Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert, was formally Á and fatefully Á assured by the German chief of staff that the army would be put at the disposal of thenew republic, provided that ‘protection’ meant the suppression of Bolshevik

revolution. As such, Ebert’s fragile leftist coalition duly collapsed at the end of December upon the siding of the Independent Socialists (USPD) with the Spartacistsin opposition. With the foundation of the German Communist Party (KPD)between late December 1918 and early January 1919, the disintegration of theSpartacist movement and the murder of its leadership on 15 January, these divisionsbecame all the more pronounced and damaging for the long-term viability of theGerman Left. While the Communists went on to replace the Spartacists in thepolitical spectrum, each of the three uprisings against the state in which they partook during its early years (January 1919, March 1921 and October 1923) was

progressively worse than the last and wholly indicative of the lack of popularsupport for the far Left on the part of the public.23

It soon became clear, however, that the real threat to the fledgling state came notfrom the Left, but from the Right. Represented in the political forum by the GermanNational People’s Party (DNVP) and the German People’s Party (DVP), the scionsof Church, state and civil society that constituted the established Right shared muchcommon ground with more radical elements that had emerged in direct response tothe Revolution and the foundation of the Weimar Republic. Of these groups, theparamilitary Freikorps (still-mobilized veterans used by the government to crush

leftist revolts) were the most visible. But they soon turned on their Republicanmasters, meting out their own style of rough justice on Jews and Communists alike;reticence on the part of the Reichswehr to tackle their former comrades and meagresentences handed down by a biased judiciary allowed the onward passage of Freikorps members and other counter-insurgents into the (often clandestine) right-wing organizations and parties of which the early Nazi party was but one of many.

22 Detlev J. K. Peukert, The Weimar Republic: The Crisis of Classical Modernity , trans. Richard Deveson(New York, 1989), 72.

23 Eric D. Weitz,Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy

(Princeton, NJ, 2007), 91.




While numerous and fragmentary in nature, their combined threat to state security was worrying, and elements of this wider lunatic fringe were responsible for thesuccession of political assassinations that occurred in the first six months of 1919.Following on from the particularly brutal slaying of the Spartacist leaders Rosa

Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht at the hands of a Freikorps unit, the murders of Leo Jogiches, Kurt Eisner and Hugo Hasse Á all leaders of Socialist and Communistmovements Á and, conspicuously, Eisner, the minister president of Bavaria,developed into a systematic campaign of political terror. This incendiary, unstableatmosphere accordingly provided the backdrop to the attempted right-wing Putschin March 1920, led by Wolfgang Kapp and a motley crew of disenchanted presentand former army officers, in addition to the socialist rebellions that occurred in theRuhr and in Saxony and Thuringia. While the government overcame these threats,its grip on power remained precarious.

Though unsuccessful, the Kapp Putsch demonstrated just how delicate democracy really was in the first years of the Weimar era Á a fact not lost on certain Germanintellectuals who fell somewhere between leftist and rightist stances. LabelledVernunftrepublikaner , they offered a support for the new regime which was groundedin rationalism, not by emotional attachment. One such figure was the sociologistMax Weber who, after years of relative obscurity, was thrust into the politicallimelight by his role as advisor to the German delegation at the peace negotiations atVersailles in 1919; later he would serve as the only non-official participant in the 13-strong Constitutional Committee that drafted what became the Weimar Republic’s

constitution. Advocating rejection of the ‘peace of shame’, he stoically accepted theTreaty ’s inevitability, but added that ‘misery had only just begun’.24 In his January 1919 lecture ‘Politics as a Vocation’, delivered at the University of Munich, Weberbeseeched those with a political calling to practise an ‘ethics of responsibility ’cognizant of the consequences of their actions, in preference to an ‘ethics of intentions’ whereby any means could be used to justify the end.25 In the ferment of the revolutionary period, Weber ended his lecture on a pessimistic note: ‘ What liesimmediately ahead of us is [ . . .] a polar night of icy darkness and hardness, no matterwhich group wins the outward victory now.’26 In March 1920, shortly after the KappPutsch, Weber remarked darkly to Georg Luka ´cs that Germany faced a reactionary future for the next two decades.27

In fact, Weber’s gloomy prognosis was borne out not long afterward. As EberhardKolb points out, the period 1921 Á 2 witnessed a consolidation and intensification onthe part of the extreme Right, with a new wave of political murder now spreading to

24 Wolfgang Mommsen, Max Weber and German Politics, 1890 Á 1920 (Chicago, IL, 1984), 320.25 Max Weber, Political Writings , ed. Peter Lassman and Ronald Speirs (Cambridge, 1994), 309 Á 69,

esp. pp. 352 Á 69.26 Ibid ., 368.27 Mommsen,

Max Weber and German Politics , 329.

366 PHILIP GRAYDON



include leading representatives of the democratic mainstream.28 On 9 June 1921,USPD leader Karl Gareis was shot dead in Munich. Matthias Erzberger, leader of theCatholic Centre Party, met a similar fate on 26 August; as signatory of the Armisticeand a trenchant advocate of the new republic, Erzberger had long been a hate figure

for the Right. While some, notably workers, took to the streets in protest, the Rightgloated with open, unabashed triumphalism. The most notorious assassination wasthat of Walter Rathenau, who was killed ten months later in June 1922. LikeErzberger, Rathenau was a cultured German Jew and fervent republican who hadalso participated in the armistice and at Versailles. As Minister for Reconstructionand then Foreign Minister, Rathenau knew well the manifold problems facing thenew German Republic Á in early 1919 he wryly observed: ‘Now we have a Republic,the problem is we have no republicans.’29

In common with the furore following Erzberger’s murder, there was a further

outburst of communal grief and demonstrations all over Germany as many Á

notleast Chancellor Joseph Wirth (‘ We are experiencing in Germany a politicalbrutalization’) Á read Rathenau’s assassination as part of a concerted campaign to killthe Weimar Republic itself.30 Concluding an impassioned speech in the Reichstag following Rathenau’s murder, Wirth raged: ‘There stands the enemy (to the right),who drips his poison in the wounds of the people Á There stands the enemy Á andabout that there is no doubt: the enemy stands on the right!’31 The day before

Wirth’s speech, Hofmannsthal’s friend Harry Graf Kessler wrote in his diary: ‘ A new chapter of German history begins with this assassination Á or should begin’,32 andthough the Reichstag passed a Law for the Protection of the Republic establishing

commissars for the purposes of maintaining public order in each of the states, thelatter expended more energy watching the Left than the Right. Indeed, as early as1923, the left-liberal journal Das Tagebuch noted with distaste the fact thatRathenau’s assassination had been largely forgotten.33 For postwar German society,memory could be selective as well as collective.

While instability continued to be generated by forces outside direct state control,the Weimar administration was also forced to deal with problems of its own making.

Accused by the Allies of defaulting on its reparation payments in January 1923,Germany was forced to endure the humiliation of French and Belgian military

occupation of the Ruhr. Decreeing passive resistance, the government orderedworkers not to enter the region’s mines while it took on the financial burden of having

28 Eberhard Kolb, The Weimar Republic , trans. P. S. Falla (London and New York, 1992), 44.29 Attributed to Rathenau in Berlin in Lights: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler (1918 Á 1937) , trans.

and ed. Charles Kessler, with an introduction by Ian Buruma (New York, 1999), 71.30 Stern, Five Germanys Have I Known , 64.31 Weitz, Weimar Germany , 100 (Weitz’s translation).32 Berlin in Lights , ed. and trans. Kessler, 183.33 The Weimar Republic Sourcebook , ed. Anton Kaes, Martin Jay and Edward Dimenberg (Berkeley,

CA, 1994), 87.




ordered such a stance. Pride may have taken precedence over prudence, but the resultswere devastating for the German economy. Progressive mismanagement of inflationby successive German governments soon spiralled into full-blown hyperinflation: by the end of November 1923, a single US dollar bought 4.2 trillion marks. As Eric

Weitz reminds us, ‘Germans carried suitcases and pushed wheelbarrows full of money Á to buy a loaf of bread or a pair of shoes.’34 Scarcely five years following the War, theGerman population was once more plunged into the depths of privation.

All in all, the problems that beset the early Weimar Republic seemed never-ending. With the overall fiscal situation at breaking point, short-lived communistgovernments in Saxony and Thuringia occasioned brutal responses on the part of theReichswehr but, as ever, threats to the German state came from either direction. TheHitler-led ‘Beer Hall’ Putsch Á an abortive, Munich-based ‘march on Berlin’ Á eerily prophesied just how potent an admixture of hatred for the ‘November criminals’,

Jews and Marxists, and crude pageantry could be. While the introduction of theRentenmark in November 1923 by the new chancellor, Gustav Stresemann,established financial stability and ensured temporary recovery, the Weimar Republicremained mired in disorder. Many of its political, economic and socialcharacteristics stemmed from the lost War, and it is in this sense that German(and indeed Austrian) society in the 1920s never really made that qualitative leapfrom a wartime mentality to a peacetime one Á retaining, in essence, a postwarmindset.35 It was this selfsame, wider Germanophone society that Hofmannsthaland Strauss sought to represent in Die a ¨ gyptische Helena , this collaboration’s mostsustained attempt at uniting, through art, a culture riven by the War and its

deleterious effects.

Making mythological opera

Although the period 1919 Á 23 may have lacked any actual operatic product from theHofmannsthal Á Strauss collaboration, it was by no means short on proposals. Strausshad been contemplating a new opera since May 1916, as he was busy sketching themusic for the third act of Die Frau ohne Schatten and with the Vorspiel for therevised version of Ariadne auf Naxos nearing completion. As with all creative

34 Weitz, Weimar Germany , 102. In Austria the situation was not much better, nor had it been inVienna since the end of the War. In April 1919, Hofmannsthal wrote from his home in Rodaun onthe outskirts of the city to his friend the Countess Ottonie Degenfeld: ‘The poverty here is truly awful; and each region cordons itself off from the others. I rather doubt that we ourselves will beallowed to travel to Aussee, and by no means with guests Á oh, certainly not with guests. After all, wehave nothing to eat; now even the horse meat, on which we have subsisted for the past year and a half, is no longer affordable and no longer available. But this misery will pass in time. ’ Hofmannsthalto Degenfeld, 14 April 1919. The Poet and the Countess: Hugo von Hofmannsthal ’ s Correspondence with Countess Ottonie Degenfeld , ed. Marie-Therese Miller-Degenfeld, trans. W. Eric Barcel(Rochester, NY, 2000), 331.

35 See Richard Bessel,Germany After the First World War

(Oxford, 1993), 282 Á 4.

368 PHILIP GRAYDON



(cultivation) and Kultur . However, the main difference between Hofmannsthal andHeidegger, for example, was that for the former, the true spiritual Heimat (homeland) for quintessential Bildung and Kultur was not in fact Germany, but

Austria Á specifically that which ‘existed’ in ‘spiritual’ form, rather than the postwar,

rump republic of reality. If modern culture existed as a synthesis of Occident andOrient (hypostasized by Menelas and Helena in Die a ¨ gyptische Helena ), Austria Á forHofmannsthal, the ‘true’ canvas for a (notionally) pan-Germanic culture Á stood asthe true paradigm of that synthesis, its very geographical position between East and

West captured in microcosm by the Salzburg Festival and its mythos (the formerHofmannsthal helped to instigate; the latter, he propagated).49

In effect, Hofmannsthal saw his idealized postwar Austria as the model andimpetus for the emerging federalist concept of postwar European unity, and it is inthis context that he emerged as one of the most distinguished associates of the

European Cultural Union (Federation des Unions Intellectuelles or Europa ¨ischerKulturbund), founded in Vienna in 1922 by Karl Anton Prinz Rohan (1898 Á 1975).50 With over 50 local branches throughout Europe at its height, the EuropeanCultural Union was one of the continent’s most important interwar intellectualnetworks until its demise in 1934. It was outlived by ten years by its periodical, theEuropa ¨ ische Revue , whose comprehensive roster of contributors included not only Hofmannsthal and the instigator of the Pan-European Union, Count Richard vonCoudenhove-Kalergi (1894 Á 1972),51 but also figures such as Alfred Weber, JoseOrtega y Gasset and Le Corbusier.52

49 For a thorough investigation of Hofmannsthal’s role vis-a `-vis the Salzburg Festival, see Michael P.Steinberg, The Meaning of the Salzburg Festival: Austria as Theater and Ideology, 1890 Á 1938 (Ithaca,NY, and London, 1990).

50 Whether through reticence or pressure of work, Hofmannsthal was apparently tardy with regard toRohan’s initial overtures concerning the Cultural Union. Contacting Hofmannsthal and Strauss (andpresumably other like-minded figures) around the same time, Rohan had received acknowledgement by the middle of 1922 only from Strauss: ‘ What do you think of Prince Rohan and his [Cultural Union]?He said he’d so far been trying in vain to contact you! I have therefore only manifested non-committalsympathy with his intentions.’ Strauss to Hofmannsthal, 29 August 1922. Correspondence , 355.

51 Co-founded in 1923 by Coudenhove-Kalergi and Archduke Otto von Habsburg, the Pan-European

Union was the first popular movement for a united Europe. A year previously, Coudenhove-Kalergipublished his manifesto, Pan-Europa (Vienna, 1922) Á a lucid, interwar apologia defending democratic, multicultural ‘European’ political institutions and the cultural connections between Western and Eastern Europe. Each copy of the book was accompanied by a membership formexhorting its readers to join the Pan-Europa movement, and while it is unclear whether Straussactually joined, he was sufficiently sympathetic with its aims for Coudenhove-Kalergi to solicit(unsuccessfully) a hymn from him for the opening of the first Congress of the Pan-European Unionon 3 October 1926. See Coudenhove-Kalergi to Strauss, 18 July 1926. Der Strom der To ¨ ne trug mich

fort: Die Welt un Richard Strauss in Briefen , ed. Franz Grasberger in collaboration with Franz and Alice Strauss (Tutzing, 1967), 303 Á 4.

52 Paul Gottfried, ‘Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the Interwar European Right’, Modern Age , 49(2007), 508 Á 19 (p. 508).

372 PHILIP GRAYDON



opera to the jaded, prewar Wagnerian-nationalist model embodied by Pfitzner’sPalestrina (1917).

While the allegorical dimension to Hofmannsthal’s libretto places it squarely asone of his late works,60 the emphasis on the passage of time and its consequences

points to a long-standing theme beloved of its creator. In Helena , the dichotomy between the married protagonists, Menelas and Helena Á between past and present;between ‘being ’ (‘Sein’) and ‘becoming ’ (‘ Werden’) Á is rehearsed once more.61 Likethe upper and lower worlds inhabited by the Kaiser and Kaiserin, on the one hand,and the Dyer and his wife, on the other, in Die Frau ohne Schatten , Menelas andHelena ‘inhabit’ opposing worlds in figurative terms: Occident and Orient; sun andearth; light and dark; life and death.62 But unlike the near-mutually exclusive realmsin the cosmology of Die Frau , in Helena Hofmannsthal endeavoured to synthesizethe sundered parts of the whole represented by Menelas and Helena with a sense of

ethical (and cultural-spiritual) urgency.63

As the librettist wrote: ‘In the mythical, a thing carries a double meaning which is its contradiction’; ‘therefore, in the mythical,everything exists in equilibrium’.64

The concept of ‘double meaning ’ is therefore crucial to an understanding of thefull import of the opera ’s plot, beginning with its frame: Menelas’s and Helena ’shomeward journey to Sparta after the Trojan War. At what Larry Vaughan has aptly termed ‘the Archimedean point’ in the opera Á where Menelas and Helena are reconciled and Menelas’s inner demons exorcized via Helena ’s resolution,the draught of recollection, and the arrival of their daughter Hermione (thesymbol of their bond) Á Menelas cries, Tristan -style: ‘Dead Á Living! Living Á Dead!’

60 On the role of allegory in Hofmannsthal’s works, see Steinberg, The Meaning of the Salzburg Festival ,142 Á 64.

61 Walter Jens, Hofmannsthal und die Griechen (Tubingen, 1955), 116.62 Ibid . Philip Ward has commented on how Hofmannsthal (following Bachofen) identified Helena

with earth, night, moon and sea, distinctions she envoices in the libretto: ‘Erde und Nacht, Mondand Meer, helfet mir jetzt!’ (‘Earth and night, moon and sea, help me now!’). See Philip Ward,Hofmannsthal and Greek Myth: Expression and Performance (Berne, 2001), 229. Quotation from

Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Die a ¨ gyptische Helena , libretto (Berlin, 1928; repr. Mainz, 1987), 20.63 As implied above in note 38 and exemplified in, among other works, Die Frau ohne Schatten and Die a ¨ gyptische Helena , Hofmannsthal was a fervent believer in the sanctity of marriage, as is also madeevident in the following note from 1922: ‘The meaning of marriage is mutual resolution andpalingenesis. A true marriage can be dissolved only by death, and not even then, actually ’ (‘Der Sinnder Ehe ist wechselseitige Auflosung und Palingenesie. Wahre Ehe ist darum nur durch den Todlosbar, ja eigentlich auch durch diesen nicht’). Hofmannsthal, ‘Buch der Freunde’, Aufzeichnungen ,7 Á 82 (p. 29). Conversely, Strauss’s Symphonia domestica and Intermezzo bear witness to thecomposer’s correspondingly earthier view of marital relations.

64 ‘Im Mythischen, ist jedes Ding durch einen Doppelsinn, der sein Gegensinn ist, getragen’; ‘darum istim Mythischen alles im Gleichgewicht’. Hofmannsthal, ‘Buch der Freunde’, 35. Quoted in ErwinKobel,

Hugo von Hofmannsthal (Berlin, 1970), 334.




(‘Tot Á Lebendig! Lebendig Á Tote!’).65 For Menelas, the ‘real’ Helena, though actually ever-present, had been dead in his eyes (through the potion of oblivion); at theopera ’s close, she is alive, facing imminent death at his hand.

With its echoes of Tristan , ‘Dead Á Living, Living Á Dead!’ therefore operates as a

further strand to the fundamental Helena Á Menelas, Menelas Á Helena dichotomy, asit is by this very sense of polarity that Hofmannsthal promotes unity, not only between Menelas and Helena, but also between the ‘phantom’ Helena and the real;and indeed, the sundered parts of the pan-Germanic body politic at large.66 ForHofmannsthal, as for Strauss, marriage betokened equilibrium, a quality severely lacking on both national and international fronts following the First World War. AsHofmannsthal’s artistic attempt to encapsulate the conflict and contradictions of hisera, Die a ¨ gyptische Helena exists as nothing less than the key document of hispostwar, cultural-restorative mission.

While the importance of Helena for Hofmannsthal’s late career may be clear, itssignificance in terms of opera in the Weimar Republic Á and indeed Strauss’s place inthat historical timeframe Á has been all but ignored. Historiography has traditionally focused on the more ‘topical’ works of the composer’s contemporaries, such asSchoenberg, Krenek and Weill. In many ways Helena captured the same ‘Zeit’ albeitwith a different ‘Geist’, betokening a concept of postwar German opera far removedfrom jazz-crazed Berlin. Moments in Intermezzo which suggest Strauss mimicking theyoung Hindemith’s experimental harmony (specifically, Baron Lummer’s aggregatedfourths and thirds in Act 1, scene iv, and the card-shuffling at the skat party in Act 2,scene i) typify the elder composer’s parodistic bent, but, overall, his music during the

65 Quoted in Vaughan, ‘Myth and Society ’, 332. To be sure, Hofmannsthal’s text abounds withreferences to Wagner. Helena ’s awakening at the end of Act 1 is reminiscent of Brunnhilde’s, and thepotions of oblivion and recollection in Die a ¨ gyptische Helena are strongly reminiscent of themechanics of betrayal in Go ¨ tterda ¨ mmerung (comparison can also be made between the potion of oblivion as administered by Aithra to ensure the rekindling of love in Helena and the love potionadministered by Branga ¨ne in Act 1 of Tristan und Isolde ). Moreover, the potion of recollection inHelena , which plainly exposes the protagonist’s duplicity, also points to the Tristan love potion(given that both potions seemingly assure death), despite Hofmannsthal’s firm protestations to thecontrary in his correspondence with Strauss. In a letter from April 1928, Strauss asked: ‘Couldn’t you

marshal a few [. . .

] ancient sources [that is, in a preface to the libretto, here proposed by Strauss, forthe benefit of critics and public alike], proving that the love potion in Tristan , and the potion of oblivion in Act 1 and that of remembrance in Act 3 of Go ¨ tterda ¨ mmerung are not inventions of R. Wagner?’, to which Hofmannsthal replied: ‘what is all this about the potions ? I am utterly at a loss tounderstand. After all Wagner did not, for heaven’s sake, invent these potions! One (in the Ring )comes from the Edda, the other from the Tristan legend. In sagas and myths these potions are a standing institution.’ Strauss to Hofmannsthal, 25 April 1928, and Hofmannsthal to Strauss, 30 April 1928. Correspondence , 471 Á 2, 473.

66 Contrary to his contemporary Austrian pan-Germanists, Hofmannsthal advocated cultural, notpolitical, unity with Germany; moreover, during the 1920s both Hofmannsthal and Strauss nuancedthe concept of pan-Germanism by valorizing the long-standing cultural ties between Bavaria and Austria, particularly in their reworking of

Die Ruinen von Athen and in

Die a ¨ gyptische Helena

.

376 PHILIP GRAYDON



Indeed, recognition of such contemporary cultural references in Hofmannsthal’soutwardly mythological setting merely magnifies the role Helena played in the widerdebate concerning the place of the art form itself in wider German culture.Fundamentally, Die a ¨ gyptische Helena Á and the tendentious critical opposition it

generated Á apostrophized the aesthetics of opera in Weimar Germany and thewidespread concern for its continued viability in its received form as ‘authentic’ art.Composers such as Strauss, Franz Schreker, Alexander von Zemlinsky and Erich

Wolfgang Korngold continued to write traditionally styled operas to popular acclaimand often with considerable success, but the post-Wagnerian cast of such worksantagonized younger critics intent on nurturing the new over the nugatory.

Awareness of the ever-transitory nature of modern life, coupled with a consciouswill to throw off the torpor and turgid symbolism of the imperial era and anattendant desire to foster the radically alternative, drove such commentators to

celebrate brevity, topicality and objectivity in construction, staging and aesthetic. In a decade characterized by jazz music and motion pictures, it was the very works thatdrew on such cultural markers (for example Weill’s Royal Palace , 1926, whichutilized cinematic sequences) that garnered critical approval. With the appearance of Krenek ’s Jonny spielt auf , the profound penetration of an essentially Americancultural phenomenon was all but confirmed for supporter and detractor alike.

However, unlike the generic and aesthetic limitations of a work such as Krenek ’s Jonny , the transhistorical approach undertaken by Hofmannsthal and Strauss in Die a ¨ gyptische Helena allowed them to comment on contemporary culture in a fashion

consonant with their time without being unduly beholden to it. One such visualexample is the above-mentioned Seashell, a deliberately gramophone-like sight gag lampooning the modern gadgets commonly found on the stage sets of contemporary Zeitopern . But, as in most instances with Hofmannsthal, such whimsicality had a serious side too. Like Strauss’s use of the telephone in Intermezzo , the OmniscientSeashell pointed to the aesthetic impact of new media on both culture and forms of cultural representation. As Siegfried Mattl comments, the arts in Weimar Germany reflected just how strong the transformative influence of communications technology was on both the depiction and the cultural interpretation of subjectivity: ‘as soon asreality could be stored by technical devices and verbal and physical gestures weretransmitted by machines, literature, for example, changed its topics and materials todeal with the uncanny scenery of the disembodied language’.70 Hofmannsthal’sSeashell therefore captured perfectly this sense of disembodiment, itself a potentmetaphor for postwar German society. The portrayal in the opera of an other-worldly voice transmitting news of Helena ’s flight from Troy and the threat of herimpending murder in a style that combined elements of radio, the telephone and, in

70

Siegfried Mattl, ‘The Ambivalence of Modernism from the Weimar Republic to National Socialismand Red Vienna ’, Modern Intellectual History , 6 (2009), 223 Á 34 (p. 226).

378 PHILIP GRAYDON



a visual sense, the gramophone operated equally as sheer entertainment and ascontemporary cultural comment.71

Visual indicators aside, Strauss’s music took a similarly transhistorical approach tomusical style in a conscious attempt to reflect the transitory nature of contemporary

existence. Through a modus operandi prescient of later twentieth-century opera aesthetics, Strauss strategically bypassed naturalistic (and, by the 1920s, expressio-nistic) traditions in order to highlight the commonplace and the human via myth andhistorical allusion. In this manner, the score for Die a ¨ gyptische Helena juxtaposes a wide variety of styles and non-connected historical allusions which help orientate thelistener to the fact that the music works directly parallel to the libretto as an exegesis of history, memory and culture, as mediated through the opera itself. Thus Die a ¨ gyptische Helena registers as the key Strauss work of the 1920s by virtue of this Nietzscheandeconstruction of the historical in music. In a real sense, the opera mirrored the

relentless fragmentation wrought on contemporary society by early twentieth-century modernity, and through careful use of overlapping and often non-contiguous canonicquotations and allusions Strauss subtly played on the concepts of time, memory andnostalgia in a mode that was skilfully reflective of his very subject matter.

Ton und Wort : synergy and semantic import

As noted above, stylistic and actual reminiscences of the music of earlier periods andcomposers often exist in juxtaposed fashion in Strauss’s later operas, and Die a ¨ gyptische Helena is no exception. Indeed, the very start of Act 1, scene i refers subtly to the

descending chromatic phrase that opens the Prelude to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde , butwhile his Wagnerian model leads directly to the infamous ambiguity of the Tristan chord in its source, Strauss’s contrastingly goal-directed harmonies contain little tosuggest the semiotics of eroticism (see Example 1a). Directly after the Tristan allusion,the main theme from Dalila ’s aria ‘Mon cœur s’ouvre a ` ta voix ’ (‘ At your voice my heartunfolds’ Á popularly known as ‘Softly awakes my heart’) from Saint-Saens’s Samson et

71 Moreover, from an early stage it was Hofmannsthal’s wish that the Seashell Á also influenced by the

‘phylacteres prophetiques’ he had found in the mythological farce Prote ´ e , by the French dramatistPaul Claudel (1868 Á 1955) Á was to sound ‘really amusing and mysterious ’. Hofmannsthal to Strauss,16 October 1923. Correspondence , 371. ‘ When I mention ‘‘gurgling ’’’, he wrote to the composer, ‘Ihave in mind the noise of water ‘‘speaking ’’ in a pipe. It is not absolutely vital that one shouldunderstand what it says; it might in fact be amusing if the Sea shell were to sound distorted like a voice on the telephone when one stands beside the receiver.’ Ibid . As Wolfgang Loffler has pointedout, Die a ¨ gyptische Helena was the first opera to harness burgeoning sound technology in a livesetting by using a microphone and loudspeaker to create this effect. Wolfgang Loffler, ‘Die zwanziger Jahre: Eine Endzeit der Musik?’, Musik der zwanziger Jahre , ed. Werner Keil, in collaboration withKerstin Jaunich and Ulrike Kammerer (Hildesheim, 1996), 317 Á 31 (p. 321). According to Rudolf Hartmann, the actual result was disappointing Á although the latter’s description of it causing the

voice to distort curiously tallies with Hofmannsthal’s original intentions. See Rudolf Hartmann,Richard Strauss: The Staging of his Operas and Ballets (Oxford, 1982), 167.




Dalila (see Example 1b) is suggested in the lithe instrumental accompaniment toHelena ’s initial words, painting her as temptress and the cause of Troy ’s destruction.

This clear reference to Dalila ’s vocal melody Á underscored by the almost identicalchromatic descent, the similarly rich, flat key and, in particular, the clear nod towardSaint-Saens’s trademark restrained emotionalism Á is followed just as quickly (if

incongruously, save for the text) by an evocation of the so-called ‘Valhalla ’ theme

Example 1b. Saint-Saens, Samson et Dalila , Act 2, scene iii (excerpt).

ma ten dres se,

Dalila

Un peu plus lent

Ah!

dolce

ré ponds à

Example 1a (continued)

+C Clar.

354

si tzen und es sen?

espr.




though he is in the absolutely shattered state of those who survive all too terriblesituations that one sees for days and weeks on end in so many military hospitals. ’74

As an antidote to his wounded psyche and pride, Menelas thus endeavours tofinish the act of retribution first attempted aboard ship, when his dangerously drawn

(and ominously crooked) sword was thwarted by Aithra ’s supernatural powers. Oncemore the sorceress intervenes, and dispatches a coterie of sinister elves, somebedecked in warriors’ costumes complete with helmets, shields and spears to conjureup an ‘imaginary ’ Helena and a disinterred Paris for Menelas to pursue as they sneer:‘Paris is here! Here stands Paris!’ (‘Paris hier! Hier steht Paris!’) and, a little later,‘Helena here, Paris there / Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!’ (‘Helena hier, Paris da! /Hahahahahaha!’). In her rallying call, the vocal writing for Aithra stands as aneffective tribute to Strauss’s lifelong fascination with the interface between words andmusic, with the latter tailored to suit not only the text, but also its declamation.

Moreover, her florid coloratura offers a supreme example of stylized vocal acrobaticsknowingly reminiscent of Zerbinetta from Ariadne auf Naxos and, in turn, Donizettiand Bellini Á particularly the quickfire descending run at bars 1629 Á 30 in Example3a and its analogue at bars 725 Á 7 in Example 3b.

The elves’ machinations duly serve to divert Menelas from killing the ‘actual’Helena, and to allow her and Aithra to become formally acquainted, their jointdeclaration Á ‘Stronger than warriors, richer than kings / are two women who trusteach other!’ (‘Sta ¨rker als Krieger, reicher als Konige / sind zwei Frauen, die sichvertrauen!’) Á echoing the sisterly bond between Elektra and Chrysothemis. By

restoring Helen’s prewar countenance and an ultimately false sense of security withthe potion of oblivion, Aithra so contrives that Helena ’s dream of a happy householdis real, and that Menelas’s reality is, in fact, a dream.

As Helena sleeps under the illusion of stability and reconciliation toward the endof Act 1, Menelas reappears, reeling from a nuanced rerun of his wartime experiences(he is convinced that he has killed Helena and the phantom Paris), trying to reasonwith himself before Aithra lulls him into amnesia with the potion of oblivion: ‘Tornheart! / Fractured mind / A pain in my veins / pain from your poisoned darts!’(‘Zerspalten das Herz! / Zerruttet der Sinn! / Weh in den Adern, / weh euerer Pfeilelerna ¨isches Gift!’). As his dementia continues, Menelas’s consequent entreaty to thegods thus gains in terms of necessity: ‘Give me back / my whole being, / theundivided / happiness of my manhood!’ (‘Gebt mir mich selber, / mein einig Wesen,/ der unzerspaltenen / Mannheit Gluck!’). As Larry Vaughan writes, ‘to forget meansto reify ’.75 Helena ’s enthusiastic partaking of the potion quelled her fear of Menelas’s

74 ‘Er ist kein Wahnsinniger, aber er ist in dem Zustand volliger Zerruttung, den man in so vielenKriegslazaretten bei denen, die aus allzu furchtbaren Situationen kamen, tage- und wochenlang beobachtet hat.’ Hofmannsthal, ‘Die a ¨ gyptische Helena ’, 99. Having seen both military anddiplomatic service during the War, Hofmannsthal’s experience was acutely first-hand in this respect.

75 Vaughan, ‘Myth and Society ’, 337.

384 PHILIP GRAYDON



Example 3a. Ariadne auf Naxos (1916 rev. version), bars 1626 Á 36.

3

3

33 3

1635

schlecht,

3 33

1631

ich hal te mich treu und bin schon

1629

lo gen,

1626 Zerbinetta

Noch bin ich wahr und doch ist es ge




Example 3b. Die a ¨ gyptische Helena , Act 1, scene ii, bars 695 Á 729.

705

stern, Le ben di ges zu euch zu

702

pap pelnd ver mummt, Nacht el fen ihr, lü

699

gen im wei ßen Ge sicht, die ihr lau ernd li stig euch

Str.

695 ( = 96)Lebhaft

Aithra

Ihr

(beschw örend)

grü nen Au

.

386 PHILIP GRAYDON



Example 3b (continued)

715

Lärm ei ner Schlacht be

712

den schafft mir vom Leib! Mit

709

ei nen hei ßen Kerl, ei nen rech ten Rauf bold,

707

ziehn, ich hab’ hier im Haus




vengeance, enabling her to offset her culpability in Menelas’s act Á thereby allowing Hofmannsthal to address, in aesthetic terms, the reality of his troubled era. InVaughan’s appropriate words: ‘The Central Europeans (Germans) drank from thegilt-edged cup of reification and forget [sic ]. They wanted to forget the war guilt,formally laid down upon them by the Allies, whose material reparations they sufferedunder and whose moral onus they wished to shed.’76 In a not dissimilar fashion tothe disorientated, postwar Austrian and German middle classes, Helena tries to bury the wrongs of the recent past in order to construct an inauthentic present as Act 1

draws to a close. However, Hofmannsthal proves in his libretto that the pastultimately needs to be reconciled with the present in order to guarantee verity for thefuture. The temporary escape from the truth afforded to Helena by the potion of oblivion Á and, more importantly, the enforced amnesia afforded to Menelas Á may ensure a tranquil ending to Act 1, but that serenity proves to be shortlived.

With its false sense of security, the finale to Act 1 (subtitled ‘Helena ’s Awakening ’)is suitably alluring in musical terms Á all the more so for the slightly surrealatmosphere it gains through the chorus of (unseen) elves, who comment


728

Schwert in der Hand.

725

zwan zig Bäu me, sein

76 Vaughan, ‘Myth and Society ’, 337.




Goethe had in mind in his Iphigenia [in Tauris ].’77 With Aithra ’s chiding of thechirping elves introducing a fleeting moment of humour near the tail end of Act 1(indicating a vestige of the Singspiel-like treatment originally envisaged by Strauss forthe opera in 1924), the first half of Helena concludes resplendently in the

luminescent glow of E major.The promise of anonymity for Menelas and Helena at the start of Act 2 is broken

by the arrival of the sheikh, Altair, his son, Da-ud, and his cadre of attendantwarriors. The steadily growing ardour for Helena harboured by both sheikh and sonis described thus by Hofmannsthal:

Even though no one has ever heard her name before, the situation here is the same as in

her homeland: they fall in love with her, the father as much as the son; they want to snatch

her away from Menelas; one is sure that they would kill each other because of her, but

there is a crucial detail Á I am referring to the core, and that core is Helena: it is the

strongest element of this woman, wherein her brilliance lies Á that she must havecompletely the man to whom she belongs.78

77 Im ubrigen bemuht sich die Musik einer edlen griechischen Haltung, etwa in der Art, wie Goethe dieGriechen in seiner ‘‘Iphigenie’’ vorgeschwebt sind.’ Richard Strauss, ‘Interview uber Die a ¨ gyptische Helena ’, Betrachtungen und Erinnerungen , ed. Willi Schuh (3rd edn, Zurich, 1981), 150 Á 3 (p. 150).Later Strauss would invoke Goethe in similar terms to counterpoise opposing visions of antiquity inhis mythological operas. Contrasting Elektra with Die a ¨ gyptische Helena , he wrote: ‘it should becommented that, with the first, I had in mind the portrayal of the demonic Greeks of the fifthcentury BC, while the style of ‘‘Helena ’’ approaches the purifying, idealistic beauty of fourth-century

Greece a ` la Goethe and Winckelmann’ (‘Zu ‘‘Elektra ’’ und ‘‘Helena ’’ is zu bemerken, da ß mir beider ersten die Schilderung der da ¨monischen Griechen des 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. vorschwebte,wa hre n d de r St y l [ si c ] d e r ‘‘ Helena ’’ dem gelauterten Schonheitsideal des Goethe Á Winkelmannischen Griechentums des 4. Jahrhunderts sich na ¨hern sollte’). Strauss, ‘Betrachtungenzu Joseph Gregors ‘‘ Weltgeschichte des Theaters’’’, 108.

78 ‘Ob man gleich ihren Namen hier nie gehort, die gleiche Situation her, wie dort in der Heimat: manverliebt sich in sie, der Vater und wie der Sohn, man will sie dem Menelas entreißen, man ist bereit,sich um ihretwillen wechselseitig zu toten, aber das ist ein Detail Á ich komme zum Kern, und derKern ist Helena: dies ist die Sta ¨rke dieser Frau, darin liegt ihre Genialita ¨t Á da ß sie den Mann, demsie gehort, ganz haben muß.’ Hofmannsthal, ‘Die a ¨ gyptische Helena ’, 102. It should be noted that thecharacterization of Da-ud provided a bone of contention between Strauss and Hofmannsthal, fuelled

by the latter’s fundamental disagreement over the composer’s suggestion regarding the casting of a contralto for the role. While not wholly disinclined toward Hosenrollen per se in an ‘artificialfigurative world like that of the theatre’ (the androgynous Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier had been a notable precedent in this regard), Hofmannsthal nonetheless refused categorically to countenance thedeployment of similar representation in Die a ¨ gyptische Helena , where ‘the juxtaposition of the sexes isbuilt into [the] whole action as a latent tension’. According to Hofmannsthal, Da-ud, in his pointlessinfatuation with Helena, represented the personification of youthful virility, thus making itnonsensical to cast him as a woman. However, for such a pragmatic man of the theatre as Strauss, theuneven standard of tenor voices at provincial opera houses was enough to spur him into preparing anarrangement of the part for performance by mezzo-soprano ‘at a pinch’ (Strauss). Hofmannsthal toStrauss, 6 May 1927 and 16 May 1927, and Strauss to Hofmannsthal, 22 May 1927.

Correspondence , 427 Á 8, 428 Á 9.




While Hans-Gerd Roder may have been justified in stating that Menelas views the Altair episode with weary familiarity (but not naive realization, as was also Roder’scontention) as an occurrence almost exactly analogous with the behaviour of theTrojans toward Helena, the German writer’s claim that ‘any individualization in the

Altair scene would have been in direct contradiction to its meaning ’ is over-generalized.79 Indeed, Altair’s reference to sacrificing his youthful retinue in returnfor a glance from Helena clearly indicates otherwise:

Gifts assembled in haste,

unworthy of a breath

from your magnificent lips!

Command it, and in the play of battle

flows the blood of these youths,

joyfully poured forth

for one glancefrom beneath your golden eyelashes!80

Altair’s willingness to sacrifice his young charges is further reinforced by Da-ud’snaive declaration of love for Helena, set by Strauss with a cloyingly sentimentaltheme marked ‘ruhig und schmachtend’ (‘quiet and languishing ’), to the following portion of text:

For it is proper that we fight

and that we die on the battlefield for her sake Á

because she is the most beautiful woman in the world!81

Thus Strauss underlines, in musical terms, the poignancy of the boy ’s prediction of his own death at the hands of Menelas, owing to his unfortunate resemblance toParis (see Example 5). Da-ud’s theme Á cast in D major, a key usually representativefor Strauss of the sublime (as in the final trio from Der Rosenkavalier and the finalscene of Capriccio ) Á sounds schmaltzy, but this may well have been by deliberatedesign. In light of the rather Tristan -esque ‘schmachtend’ in its performancedirection (further prescribed by Strauss for the accompanying lower strings as being ‘aber ohne jegliches espressivo’ (‘but without any espressivo ’)), perhaps the composer

invoked faux-sublimity in order to highlight Da-ud’s blinkered foray Á

and, by implicaton, that of the similarly youthful drafted infantries during the First World War Á into needless and often brutal slaughter. Later, as Da-ud is carried in dead

79 Hans-Gerd Roder, ‘Die a ¨ gyptische Helena : An Attempt at an Explanation’, trans. ChristopherNorton-Welsh, Richard Strauss-Bla ¨ tter , orig. ser., 4 (1972), 57 Á 70 (p. 66).

80 ‘Eilig zusammen geraffte Gaben / unwert des Hauchs / deiner furchtbaren Lippen! / Befiehl, und imspielenden Kampfe / fließet das Blut dieser Knaben, / jauchzend vergossen / fur einen einzigen Blick /aus deinen goldenen Wimpern!’

81 ‘Denn es is recht, da ß wir ka ¨mpfen / und da ß wir sterben im Blachfeld um dieser willen Á / denn sieist die Scho

¨nste auf Erden!’

394 PHILIP GRAYDON



from the hunt, this theme (at this stage pointedly espressivo ) goes into chromaticmeltdown, the occasionally grating harmonies descending sombrely in the key of C

minor into B minor before an upswing through E major, A major and C minorleads to the chord of B major on which the Trauermarsch ends (see Example 6). Justas Da-ud’s murder recalls that of Paris, a direct parallel can be traced to politicalevents in 1920s Germany, the mythological twinning finding chilling resonance inthe murders of Erzberger and Rathenau at the start of that decade. As theTrauermarsch winds its way to a close, the spirit of Rathenau looms large, thehorrified yet culpable Menelas personifying the mass outpouring of grief in collectiveatonement for the statesman’s assassination at the hands of his fellow compatriots.

Similarly, Altair’s pre-hunt display to Menelas of ‘glorious weapons’ of ‘hunting

and war’ echoes the devastation of Troy, to whose ‘besieged fields’ (‘blachem Feld’)and ‘flaming streets’ (‘flammenden Gassen’) Menelas himself alludes directly Á withdirect relevance for contemporary German and Austrian audiences, some of whomhad witnessed street-fighting in Berlin and Munich, and armed looting in Vienna, inthe early years of both republics. In a wider sense, Menelas ’s reliving of Paris’s deaththroes occasioned by his slaying of the hapless Da-ud brings to mind ‘all the dead’(‘allen Toten’) who fell around him in Troy and, by analogy, those later on thebloodied battlefields of the Western Front. Above all, Altair’s offhand reference tothe presence of an abundance of sons in his tent to replace Da-ud echoes the fate of

many of the ‘generation of 1914’ who were sent out as cannon fodder (on both sides)by their respective high commands.

Menelas’s apparent attempt to erase the past from memory by passing his handover his face82 Á a pitiful gesture underlining the inherent futility of the act and allthat it represents Á also raises the German war-guilt question to the surface onceagain. But despite the manifold references to the dead and death itself (including theoverarching ‘Dead Á Living! Living Á Dead!’ dialectic), the opera ends with a veritable Á

Example 5. Die a ¨ gyptische Helena , Act 2, scene ii, bars 2429 Á 37.

2433 2

ruhig und schmachtend

2429 2

Flutes I – IV

82 As per Hofmannsthal’s stage direction: ‘fa ¨hrt (Menelas) langsam mit der Hand uber die Stirn, wieum Vergangenes sich aus dem Geda

¨chtnis zu streichen’.




if somewhat insecure Á affirmation of life. Crucial to this denouement is Helena ’s

feast (‘Fest’). Arranged in her honour by Altair to the sound of ominous drums, itmarks a symbolic turn of events as Helena takes matters into her own hands against

the advice of Aithra, who has overseen their unfolding thus far. Arriving after Altair, Aithra has already warned Helena that she is in possession of a draught of remembrance in addition to that providing (temporary) oblivion. Helena offers thecup to Menelas, who believes it to be poison while she ‘risks everything ’, facing deathby his sword should he prove ultimately unforgiving. Before she underlines her

determination, Altair’s slaves intone the following Hofmannsthalian truth in themanner of the maxims in Mozart’s operas (the closing chorus in Die Zauberflo ¨ te , forexample):

Example 6. Die a ¨ gyptische Helena , Act 2, scene iv, bars 3179 Á 87.

3184

mühenden Frauen.

cresc.

3181

Toten. Die Sklaven sind sogleich verschwunden. Helena steht rechts von den sich um Da-ud

3179

espr.

Aithra und die Dienerinnen nähern sich dem

396 PHILIP GRAYDON



Woe to the conquered

who are soaked with tears!

Woe to those shut out

from the feast of life!

Ah hu! Ah hu! A hu!83

As Eva-Maria Lenz comments, transformation and celebration appear in tandem in Die a ¨ gyptische Helena , as in Ariadne auf Naxos .84 Moreover, the same can be assertedregarding the ‘heilige Verma ¨hlung ’ (sacred betrothal) in Hofmannsthal’s ‘Festspiel’ Die Ruinen von Athen , reflecting a potent trope for the librettist during his final decade.Though Die a ¨ gyptische Helena is effectively based upon the attainment of Verso ¨ hnung (reconciliation) rather than Verma ¨ hlung , its metaphoric power is no less cogent. As Lenzpoints out, the finale Á heralded by Helena ’s bacchantic cry: ‘ Aithra, silence! / Here andnow begins Helena ’s feast!’ (‘ Aithra, schweige! Jetzt und hier beginnet Helena ’s Fest!’) Á

is executed choreographically, with the stage decoration and strategic placing of scenes(crucially, the placement of the ‘restored’ family at the final curtain; the bond betweenthe reconciled Menelas and Helena represented by Hermione) serving as the symbolicmeans to a predetermined end.85 In a similar fashion to the theatrics at the end of Die Frau ohne Schatten (where both Kaiser and Kaiserin, and Dyer and wife, are reunited,singing of their humanity and praising their Unborn Children against a beautiful

landscape), Hofmannsthal emphasizes the theme of restoration after conflict, and thepower of transformation through integrity and benevolence.

83 ‘ Weh dem Unterliegenden / den die Tra ¨ne na ¨ßte! / Weh dem Ausgeschlossene / vom Lebensfeste! / Ah hu! Ah hu! A hu!’

84 Eva-Maria Lenz, Hugo von Hofmannsthals mythologische Oper ‘ Die a ¨ gyptische Helena ’ (Tubingen,1972), 147. Indeed, J. D. McClatchy has since expanded upon Hofmannsthal’s take on the conceptof Verwandlung (transformation) as ‘a moment when nostalgia and necessity collide, when the past isturned inside out and becomes a future that both repudiates and resembles what it has replaced,when we forget in order to change, and change in order to remember ’. ‘Introduction’, Hugo von Hofmannsthal: The Whole Difference , ed. J. D. McClatchy (Princeton, NJ, 2008), 1 Á 19 (p. 2).

85 Lenz, Hugo von Hofmannsthals mythologische Oper , 147. By transplanting in the 1933 versionHelena ’s declamation: ‘ Aithra, silence! / Here and now begins Helena ’s feast!’ (in contradistinction to

Altair’s own self-announced feast and the attendant implication that he sought to steer eventsforthwith according to his favour) to later in the action, and by excising the ensuing orchestral tutti,Strauss et al . consequently render Hofmannsthal’s thematic and structural signpost redundant.Similarly, the abridgement of Altair’s courtship scene in the later version Á in which the barsdescribing the hunt are cut and pasted to the end of the same scene Á serves inadvertently to obscurethe direct link between the (Altair-instigated) hunt and the latter’s relentless pursuit of Helena, hiswillingness to claim her by force if necessary, and the repugnant militarism that Altair himself embodies. For more on the ‘Vienna ’ version, see Richard Strauss Á Clemens Krauss: Briefwechsel: Gesamtausgabe , ed. Gunter Brosche (Tutzing, 1997), 127; Roland Tenschert, ‘Die Neue Fassung der‘‘ A ¨ gyptischen Helena ’’ von Richard Strauss (1934)’, repr. in Hofmannsthal, Die a ¨ gyptische Helena (libretto), 71 Á 9; and William Mann, Richard Strauss: A Critical Study of the Operas (London, 1964),234 Á 40.




Example 7a. Wagner, Das Rheingold , bars 3873 Á 86.

3

(simile)3

3881

più 3

8

(W ährend die Götter auf der Brücke der

3879

3877

più

(sehr energisch)

3875

(cresc.) 3

3873 3

cresc.

3




Example 7b. Die a ¨ gyptische Helena , Act 2, scene iv, bars 3794 Á 3803.

33

33

3796

8 Kind! Welch

3

3

3

3

3794

8

Menelas

O

3

mei ne Toch ter, glück li ches

Example 7a (continued)

3885

6 6 6 6 6 6

3883

6

8

Burg zuschreiten, fällt der Vorhang.)

6 6 6 6 6

400 PHILIP GRAYDON




3

6 Str.

6

Fl./Clar. (in C) 6 6

3801= 100

heim!

etwas bewegter

6

cresc.

6 6

3800

8 bring ich dir

8

3dim.

espr.

3 3 3 3 33 3

3798

8

3

ei ne Mut ter




the opera ’s closing pages arguably foreshadows the end of the finale of Shostakovich’ssimilarly ambiguous Fifth Symphony (1936). The real historical irony is that Loge’s(and Strauss’s) portent of Go ¨ tterda ¨ mmerung Á or even Go ¨ tzenda ¨ mmerung (Twilight of the Idols ) Á actually came true at the end of the next decade, when ruthlessgeopolitical ambition sparked and fuelled a Second World War, thereby putting paidto Hofmannsthal’s dream of non-political, pan-Germanic cultural unity.

ConclusionThe uniqueness of myth is that it is true for all time, and that its content is concise and

inexhaustible for all eras.

Richard Wagner (1851)88

Strauss’s similarly held fascination with myth led him to pronounce once that ‘itisonly there that one can find real material’.89 For Strauss, as for Hofmannsthal, myth servedas ‘an aesthetic device for bringing the imaginary but powerful world of preternaturalforces into a manageable collaboration with the objective facts of life’, to use Richard

Chase’s apposite formulation.90

In Die a ¨ gyptische Helena such ‘collaboration’ resulted

3

3802 6

6 6

6

6


88 ‘Das Unvergleichliche des Mythos ist, da ß er jederzeit wahr und sein Inhalt, bei dichtesterGedra ¨ngtheit, fur alle Zeiten unerschopflich ist.’ Richard Wagner, Oper und Drama , GesammelteSchriften und Dichtungen, 4 (2nd edn, Leipzig, 1907), 64.

89 Attributed to Strauss by Joseph Gregor in ‘Richard Strauß: His Personality and his Music’,Universitas: A German Review of the Arts and Sciences (Quarterly English Language Edition), 2(1958), 11 Á 20 (p. 13).

90 Richard Chase, The Quest for Myth (Baton Rouge, LA, 1949), 97. Quoted in Robert E. Blackburn,‘The Use of Myth in German Opera, 1912 Á 33, with Special Reference to the Austrian Contribution’(Ph.D. dissertation, University of Durham, 1976), 18.

402 PHILIP GRAYDON



in Hofmannsthal’s transposition of antiquity onto the crisis of the Bu ¨ rgertum , thecollapse of both Austrian and German Empires, and the attendant cultural and spiritualvacuum that beset Europe in the years after the First World War.

Central to Hofmannsthal’s strategy was a concentration on the human element of the

drama. Indeed, this concentration on the inner and outer conflicts endured by theopera ’s two protagonists is crucial to its overall structure, as it provides a large part of thesymbolic axis on which Hofmannsthal’s cultural-political message turns. Man andwoman operate at the head of a complex of similes in an artwork founded ondichotomy: deceptively serene first act/contentious second (Hofmannsthal termedthem ‘fire and water’);91 real/unreal; conscious/subconscious; amnesia/recollection;fact/fiction; honour/shame; disunity/unity. Both creators played on these contrasts inboth dramatic and musical senses (Strauss even used different sets of motives to denotethe ‘two’ Helenas). With its concentration on the profound inherent in the prosaic, the

opera continued the trend shown in exploring bourgeois existence (in particular,marriage) that had characterized Die Frau ohne Schatten (via the Kaiser and Kaiserinand, especially, the Dyer and his wife) and Intermezzo .92

Die a ¨ gyptische Helena may point to the often fragile unity of the individual, but it doesso in terms equally cognizant of the collective. Viewed retrospectively, Helena ranks as‘social’ opera par excellence in its offer of an artistic answer to the newly heightenedproblem of pan-Germanic unity in the 1920s. While it has been noted that most adversecontemporary criticism slammed the opera as artistically irrelevant, its subtle ironies show that it was anything but. Perhaps Helena fuelled such outright condemnation precisely because it struck a nerve in the national psyche that few domestic critics were either open

to admitting or willing to acknowledge. Indeed, the spectacle of a visibly shell-shockedMenelas suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder was surely dramatically raw to a generationstill reeling from the effects of the War. Thus, theopera ’s very topicality pointsto its timelessness: recent world events have shown that there will always be war, in thesame way that there will always be the victors and the vanquished, whose polities,infrastructure and, not least, societies, need rebuilding and restoration. Art can and doeslead an engaged and rehabilitating role in such endeavours, and Die a ¨ gyptische Helena surely endures as a worthy artistic testament to the efficacy of, and necessity for,reconciliation and reconstruction on multiple levels.

ABSTRACT

This article offers a contextual reading of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s and Richard Strauss’s 1927opera Die a ¨ gyptische Helena . For Hofmannsthal and Strauss, the marital rift between Menelasand Helena caused by her infidelity operated as the symbolic manifestation of a similar schism in

91 Hofmannsthal to Strauss, 14 February 1924. Correspondence , 381.92 Indeed, as Bryan Gilliam has argued, Die Frau ohne Schatten , Intermezzo and Die a ¨ gyptische Helena

can be viewed as a trilogy of ‘marriage’ operas, with Helena as the culmination. Bryan Gilliam, The

Life of Richard Strauss (Cambridge, 1999), 132.




pan-Germanic politics, society and the arts Á thus highlighting the concomitant necessity forunity through recognition and celebration of a common culture. By recasting the story of Menelas’s and Helena ’s homeward journey from Troy in order to create an aesthetic answer tothe problems of the present, Hofmannsthal and Strauss pointed to the distinct similarities

between the Trojan War and the recent conflict that had completely changed the political,geographical and social landscape in Europe. As this article demonstrates, Die a ¨ gyptische Helena stands as an artwork both expressly aware and uniquely representative of its historical momentthrough a multi-faceted literary and musical referentiality inherently characteristic of its creators.

404 PHILIP GRAYDON

‘between moscow and new york’. richard strauss's die ägyptische helena in...

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