Creating the modernist self: Gustav Mahler and fin-de-siecle performance.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Zukowski, Sheryl Kaye.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theater.

Music.

Europe--History.

Europe.

History.

Biography.

0304.

0335.

0413.

0465.

Local Subjects:

0304.

0335.

0413.

0465.

Physical Description:

374 pages

Contained In:

Dissertation Abstracts International 61-06A.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

Creating the Modernist Self explores the cultural and historical import of Gustav Mahler's activities as director of the Viennese Court Opera (1897--1907) by framing his persona and behaviors within nineteenth- and twentieth-century belief about urban sociability, mass communication, and the nature of the self. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, an increasing number of cultural critics warned of a crisis in urban communication. From the provincial Vorstadt immigrant to the wealthy aesthete who sneered at new mass entertainments, metropolitans were baffled about how to relate to others amid the throngs of a rapidly expanding Vienna. In the new metropolis, they lamented, people related superficially through momentary glances instead of intimate conversation, had their thoughts drowned by the clatter of the streetcar before they could share them, and acted as voyeurs to public affairs rather than fulfilling Enlightenment-era visions of community participation. Because discussion of visual and aural experience became a central forum for this claim of hampered sociability, the belief of Mahler's circle regarding listening and spectatorship both on and off the stage provides a fresh and trenchant perspective for understanding this transformation of belief about sociability and the senses within mass culture. Consulting documents of Mahler's Hofoper as well as letters, memoirs, and photographs of this group, I investigate the ways that Mahler and his associates presented themselves in public and private contexts---their interaction with others in performance and rehearsal, on city streets, and in intimate cafe soirees. By prescribing exercises in hearing, seeing, and "understanding" both inside and outside the theater, Mahler and his circle presented audiences with directives for connecting with fellow denizens of a detached metropolitan world. Through these lessons---from binding down a soprano's arms in rehearsal to accompanying published music with compendious prose directives to hurling glasses of water at gawking resort crowds---they simultaneously denounced and celebrated a sociability construed as uniquely "modern." Through their often-contradictory claims about voyeurism and flanerie (an ambivalence characteristic among their fin-de-siecle cohorts in numerous fields), they helped to formulate the points of debate for discussion of the self and sociability throughout the twentieth century. In analyzing their assumptions and behaviors, I reveal connections between the metropolitan sensory regime, twentieth-century communicative practices, and theatrical performance that have been central to the development of both modernist and postmodernist belief.

Notes:

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 61-06, Section: A, page: 2100.

Supervisor: Jeffrey Kallberg.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 2000.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175.

ISBN:

9780599822153

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.