E. T. A. Hoffmann, cosmopolitanism, and the struggle for German opera / / by Francien Markx.

• Superior document: Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft, Volume 192
• VerfasserIn: Markx, Francien,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, Netherlands ;, Boston, [Massachusetts] : : Brill Rodopi,, 2016.; ©2016
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Internationale Forschungen zur allgemeinen und vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft ; Volume 192.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (496 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

In this first monograph on E. T. A. Hoffmann and opera, Francien Markx examines Hoffmann’s writings on opera and the challenges they pose to established narratives of aesthetic autonomy, the search for a national opera, and Hoffmann’s biography. Markx discusses Hoffmann’s lifelong fascination with opera against the backdrop of eighteenth-century theater reform, the creation of national identity, contemporary performance practices and musical and aesthetic discourses as voiced by C. M. von Weber, A. W. Schlegel, Heine, and Wagner, among others. The book reconsiders the traditional view that German opera followed a deterministic trajectory toward Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk and reveals a cosmopolitan spirit in Hoffmann’s operatic vision, most notably exemplified by his controversial advocacy for Spontini in Berlin.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Ritter Gluck: On The Art of Judging Opera -- Don Juan: Reflections on (Performing) Mozart’s Don Giovanni -- Poet and Composer: Operatic Insights of an Insider -- ‘Patriotic Acts’: Undine on the Berlin Stage ossia Accomplishments of a Trio (Fouqué, Hoffmann, and Schinkel) -- Berlin Reviews I: Dramaturgisches Wochenblatt and Vossische Zeitung -- Berlin Reviews II: Standing up for Spontini -- Falling Silent: The Freischütz Controversy -- Postlude -- Bibliography -- Index.