Word: librettists
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...great bad boy of music, Richard Strauss. Composer Strauss, who had had somewhat similar results with his hair-raising opus in several of the world's important operatic centres, might have been chastened by this experience. But he was not. Before two years were out, he and his librettist, the late Hugo von Hofmannsthal, had turned out another grisly melodrama, a Freudian version of the Greek tragedy Elektra. In this second blood-curdler, the hag-ridden heroine danced gleefully while the dying screeches of her father's murderers floated from behind the backdrop...
...Germany's No. 1 composer. Friendly at first to the new regime, he accepted an official post as head of the German Reichsmusikkammer (State Chamber of Music). But independent-minded Strauss soon found himself in conflict with Nazi ideas of musical propriety. Nazi authorities regretted that his favorite librettist, von Hofmannsthal, had been a Jew, but agreed to let bygones be bygones if he would abjure Jewish librettists in the future. Promptly Composer Strauss got himself another Jewish librettist, Austrian-born Dramatist Stefan Zweig, and started work on a new opera called Die Schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman...
...told that while the opera was being written, Librettist Zweig, worried by Nazi growls, suggested that they call the whole thing off, that Strauss get himself another librettist acceptable to the German authorities. In reply to Librettist Zweig's suggestion, white-haired Strauss wrote a long letter. In it he expressed his contempt for the Nazis, and his hunch that by the time the opera was completed they would be out of power anyhow. The letter was addressed to Zweig in Vienna, but Zweig did not receive it. At the Austrian border, Nazi officials opened the letter and read...
Nazi rage was mollified somewhat when, later the same year, Strauss humbly announced that he had found a new 100% Aryan librettist and was planning an opera on a German historical subject. The librettist: Dr. Joseph Gregor, 50-year-old director of the Theatrical Collection in Vienna's famed National Library. Arrangements were soon made to have Strauss's forthcoming opus premiered at the opening of Munich's world-famed summer opera season. But last week, as the rehearsals were well under way, and the score of the opera was released to the public, war-loving Nazis...
With equal smartness Noel Coward has played the roles of actor, composer, librettist, playwright, autobiographer. Last week he took on a new role. A few weeks earlier his latest musical show, Operette, had opened in London, got distinctly chilly reviews-which jangled Coward's nerves. Sympathetic as a family physician, the British Admiralty promptly sent him on an official visit to the Mediterranean fleet, bade him find out what British sailors like in the way of movies...