Scandal on Stage: European Theater as Moral Trial

by Theodore Ziolkowski

• ISBN13: 9780521112604
• ISBN10: 0521112605
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-10-26
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

New plays and operas have often tried to upset the status quo or disturb the assumptions of theatre audiences. Yet, as this study explores, the reactions of the audience or of the authorities are often more extreme than the creators had envisaged, to include outrage, riots, protests or censorship. Scandal on Stage looks at ten famous theater scandals of the past two centuries in Germany and France as symptoms of contemporary social, political, ethical, and aesthetic upheavals. The writers and composers concerned, including Schiller, Stravinsky, Strauss, Brecht and Weil, portrayed new artistic and ideological ideas that came into conflict with the expectations of their audiences. In a comparative perspective, Theodore Ziolkowski shows how theatrical scandals reflect or challenge cultural and ethical assumptions and asks whether theatre can still be, as Schiller wrote, a moral institution: one that successfully makes its audience think differently about social, political and ethical questions.

Author Biography

Theodore Ziolkowski is Class of 1900 Professor (Emeritus) of German and Comparative Literature at Princeton University.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. viii
Introduction	p. 1
Scandal as a non-event?	p. 1
Art as provocation?	p. 5
Freedom of art?	p. 8
What is scandal?	p. 11
A moral institution?	p. 14
Overtures	p. 18
The morality of robbers (Schiller's Die Räuber)	p. 18
The battle of Hernani (Hugo's Hernani)	p. 27
Scanning the surface	p. 37
The drama of schnaps and forceps (Hauptmann's Vor Sonnenaufgang)	p. 38
The drama of the Savage God (Jarry's Ubu Roi)	p. 48
Sounding the depths	p. 59
Femme de siécle (Wilde/Strauss's Salome)	p. 59
Spring massacre (Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps)	p. 73
Diagnosing the present	p. 85
Dancing toward the abyss (Schnitzler's Reigen)	p. 85
Trouble in Mahagonny (Brecht/Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny)	p. 99
Overcoming the past	p. 113
Defrocking the deputy (Hochhuth's Der Stellvertreter)	p. 113
The wreck of the Medusa (Henze's Das Floss der Medusa)	p. 124
Conclusion	p. 133
Notes	p. 142
Bibliography	p. 174
Index	p. 184
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