Christopher McNulty

Hier beruhrt sich das Zeitkunstwerk mit dem Ewigkeitswerk. To what extent was the Zeitoper truly of its time? Christopher McNulty

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2008 in the subject Musicology, grade: 1, King`s College London, language: English, abstract: Recent scholarly discourse on the so-called Zeitopern of the Weimar Republic has tended to focus on the novelty of these works: their obsession with technology, the prevailing political climate or jazz idioms, for example. Indeed, very few academics have examined the operas' close links to music and opera of the past (especially Wagner, who apparently stands in direct opposition) and to contemporaneous, non-'Zeit-' music drama. To what extent, then, were these pieces 'of their time'? Investigating these issues, as well as the disparity between the works' ambition for mass appeal on the one hand and their swift departure from the repertoire (unprecedented for works of such initial popularity) on the other, the Zeitoper's apparently most fundamental defining quality - ephemerality - will be brought into question in an approach novel for its broader outlook and thoroughness.