E. T. A. Hoffmann, Cosmopolitanism, and the Struggle for German Opera

Download or read book E. T. A. Hoffmann, Cosmopolitanism, and the Struggle for German Opera written by Francien Markx and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-11-02 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.