Arnold Whittall, Telling Tales: Variations on Wagnerian Themes

November 2024, Volume 18, Number 3, 26–39.

‘It is terrifying how short the libretto for Tristan is […] and how long it takes to perform.’ Wagner was very much on Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s mind as he worked on the libretto of Die Frau ohne Schatten in 1913, vividly conveying his anxieties and frustrations in letters to Richard Strauss, and riskily straying into not-necessarily-welcome comments about musical matters. The same letter claims of one scene that ‘we shall have heroic recitative throughout (though much more rapid and flowing than in Wagner)’: indeed, ‘if I were to allow myself to think of this libretto being set to music in Wagner’s ponderous and turgid andante, I could not do it at all, for the opera would last seven hours’.