![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
In November 1937, an unusual work premiered at the Hamburg State Opera. Entitled Das Opfer (“The Sacrifice”), the one-act opera tells the story of Robert F. Scott’s last expedition, focusing on the famous final moments of Lawrence Oates. While the action features only four main characters, a large chorus – dressed for much of the time in penguin costumes – comments on events. The opera was an adaptation of an award-winning and controversial play by the eccentric expressionist poet Reinhard Goering. The libretto was written by Goering, who committed suicide not long after its completion – about a year before the first performance. The score was by composer Winfried Zillig – a student of Arnold Schoenberg and promoter of his radical modernist 12-tone technique. Subsequent descriptions of Das Opfer and its reception have been remarkably varied. Some commentators assert the play was quickly banned by the National Socialists due to its pro-British content and “degenerate” 12-tone score. Others argue that this version of events was invented post-war in order to distance Zillig from the Nazi regime, which actually embraced his work, including Das Opfer. Given that Das Opfer was probably the first professional musical response to Scott’s last expedition, and certainly the first operatic performance of the story, it is surprising that no in-depth contextual account of the work is available. The aim of our research is to provide an analysis of this opera – historical, textual and musical – that is both relevant to an Antarctic studies readership and accessible to English-speaking readers. In doing so, we suggest tentative answers to some questions raised by this intriguing musical work: How was Scott’s expedition, which has so often been tied to ideas of Britishness, adapted for German audiences? And what significance did the opera’s Antarctic setting hold in this context?
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Ursula Rack and Guinevere Narraway for helpful comments on aspects of this paper, and staff at the Hamburg University Library and the Prieberg Archive (Christian Albrechts University, Kiel) for sourcing relevant documents. This work was supported by the Australian Research Council, FT120100402.
Notes
1 At least one professional stage musical production set in Antarctica preceded Das Opfer: Australis; or, the City of Zero (1900), an elaborate pantomime performed in Sydney to celebrate Australian federation, was partly set in the continent.
2 Spufford, I May Be Some Time, 4.
3 For more detail on all of these points, see Nielsen and Leane, “Scott of the Antarctic.”
4 Zillig, “Zur Uraufführung des ‘Opfer,’” 45–7; and Davis, Final Mutiny, 374.
5 Zillig, “Vorwort,” 5–8.
6 Davis, Final Mutiny, 380.
7 Ibid., 11, 377.
8 Martin, “Reinhard Goering,” 19.
9 Although Time gives credit for the photograph to Max Nehrdich, it was probably a member of his studio who was responsible, as the photographer himself died in 1959. Our efforts to trace the copyright holder have been unsuccessful.
10 Zillig, Das Opfer, 46. Translation here and throughout this article is by Hanne Nielsen.
11 Zillig, “Das Opfer” Sommerprogramm, Bayerischer Rundfunk, 54.
12 Zillig, Das Opfer, 26.
13 Zillig, Das Opfer, 22.
14 Ohlekopf, “Hamb. Staatsoper,” 644.
15 Penguins of various species arrived at Stellingen in the first few decades of the century – see Hagenbeck, Animals, 89, 119, 141–2.
16 Ames, Empire, 152, 154. In this description Ames refers to the “Arctic Panorama”, but this appears to have been the same as the “Antarctic Panorama” which Lorenz Hagenback mentions in his book. Penguins appear in the 1896 patent application for the Arctic Panorama (Ames, Empire, 153) and elephant seals that arrived in 1910 were kept there (Hagenback, Animals, 93).
17 Zwiebach, Michael. “Top 10 All-Time Worst Opera Librettos: Part 2.” San Francisco Classical Voice. https://www.sfcv.org/article/top-10-all-time-worst-opera-librettos-part-2.
18 Zillig, Das Opfer, 54–6.
19 Ibid., 23–4.
20 Interestingly, the ice as a purifying force is a strong element in Douglas Stewart’s radio verse play about Scott’s last expedition, The Fire on the Snow, first performed on Australian radio in 1941.
21 Zillig, Das Opfer, 132–3.
22 Zillig, Das Opfer, 140, 121, 127, 135.
23 Grotjahn, “Ein Kulturgut,” 116.
24 Levi, “Atonality,” 19.
25 Stoehr, German Literature, 78.
26 Davis, Final Mutiny, 227.
27 Ibid., 313.
28 Ibid., 201–2.
29 Ibid., 328; Klee, Das Kulturlexikon, 188.
30 Davis, Final Mutiny, 201–2.
31 Ibid., 357.
32 Ibid., 367.
33 Limb and Cordingley, Captain Oates, 170.
34 Scott, Self-Portrait, 274.
35 Goering, Südpolexpedition, 50.
36 Zillig, Das Opfer, 115–6.
37 Ibid., 94–8. The same examples are contextualized quite differently in Südpolexpedition (33).
38 The National Socialists viewed both suicide and mental illness as signs of genetic inferiority.
39 Neither did Goering see a Scott/Amundsen opposition – while clearly an admirer of Scott’s expedition, he also gave the name “Roald” to one of his sons after the Norwegian leader. Davis, Final Mutiny, 322.
40 Strobl, The Germanic Isle, 7–8, 61–95, 185.
41 See e.g. Fleming, Killing Dragons, esp. Chap. 27.
42 Murphy, German Exploration, 187.
43 Lüdecke and Summerhayes, Third Reich, 15.
44 Ibid., 13.
45 According to Gregory Dubinsky, in the late 1950s, Zillig’s music was “valued for its Romantic sound, rhythmic verve and orchestral imagination.” Grove Music Online, s.v. “Zillig, Winfried (Petrus Ignatius).”
46 During the Third Reich, Zillig held the post of conductor in Düsseldorf (1932–1937) and in Essen (1937–1940), and then became the principal musical director of the Reichsgautheater in occupied Poznań (1940–1943). Grove Music Online, s.v. “Zillig, Winfried (Petrus Ignatius).” For more information on Zillig’s career under the Third Reich, see Levi, “Atonality”; and Potter, “Nazi Music.”
47 Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, s.v. “Twelve-note composition,” (by Paul Lansky, George Perle, Dave Headlam, and Robert Hasegawa). http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/44,582 (accessed 8 Oct. 2013).
48 See Kostka, Materials and Techniques, 197–219.
49 See The Oxford Companion to Music, Oxford Music Online, s.v. “Atonality,” http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t114/e447 (accessed Oct. 8, 2013).
50 See Slonimsky, Lexicon, 148–67; Ross, The Rest is Noise, 215–18; Ford, Illegal Harmonies, 66–70.
51 See Stuckenschmidt, Schoenberg, 309–10.
52 The Oxford Dictionary of Music, s.v. “Zillig, Winfried.” http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t237/e11271 (accessed November 25, 2013); Grove Music Online, s.v. “Zillig, Winfried (Petrus Ignatius)”; Stuckenschmidt, Schoenberg, 540.
53 For more information on Schoenberg’s teachings see McDonald, Schoenberg, 38–9.
54 Stuckenschmidt, Schoenberg, 319.
55 These include Kurt Weill, Otto Klemperer and Bruno Walter. See Kater, The Twisted Muse, 78–9.
56 See Grove Music Online, s.v. “Zillig, Winfried (Petrus Ignatius)”; and Stuckenschmidt, Schoenberg, 371, 490.
57 Ross, The Rest is Noise, 350.
58 Ibid., 351.
59 Evans, “Stravinsky’s Music,” 588.
60 Herbert Gerigk quoted in Ross, The Rest is Noise, 351; Potter, “Nazi Music,” 442.
61 Joseph Goebbels quoted in Evans, “Stravinsky’s Music,” 588.
62 Evans, “Stravinsky’s Music,” 588.
63 Ibid., 587–88.
64 Levi, Music in the Third Reich, xiv.
65 See Grove Music Online, s.v. “Zillig, Winfried (Petrus Ignatius).”
66 Kater, The Twisted Muse, 184.
67 Evans, “Stravinsky’s Music,” 589.
68 Grove Music Online, s.v. “Zillig, Winfried (Petrus Ignatius).”
69 Zillig’s use of twelve-note rows that could be divided into diatonic units, such as major and minor triads, was inspired by the compositional procedures employed by Schoenberg in his Suite Op. 29 (1925–1926). Grove Music Online, s.v. “Zillig, Winfried (Petrus Ignatius).” A similar technique was employed by fellow Schoenberg pupil Alban Berg in his opera Lulu (1928–1935). Furthermore, the relationship between the two central chords in Figure – C major and F-sharp major, which are separated by the interval of a tritone – is one that is exploited by Zillig throughout Das Opfer and is the same pairing of chords that Stravinsky utilized repeatedly in his ballet Petrushka (1910–1911), hence the nickname “Petrushka chord” for this particular sonority. Zillig’s reference to Stravinsky in Das Opfer is telling considering that Stravinsky was deemed a “racially and politically acceptable composer” during the Third Reich, and his music maintained a relatively stable position in the cultural life of Germany up to the outbreak of World War II. Evans, “Stravinsky’s Music,” 526.
70 The prime row comprises six pairs of semitones – that is, pairs of intervals immediately next to each other on the piano keyboard. Some of the notes have been respelled enharmonically (i.e. G-sharp has been respelled as A-flat) on the second line of this example in order to show how they have been used by Zillig to form triads, but it should be noted that they differ from each other only in spelling, not in pitch. The triads appear in second inversion – that is, with the 5th of each chord as the bass note. For a complementary analysis of Das Opfer, see Phleps, “Zwölftöniges Theater,” 179–215.
71 Zillig, Das Opfer, 3.
72 Ibid., 27–8, 83, 108.
73 Wagner’s use of the “leitmotiv” system reached its highest and most complex form in Der Ring des Nibelungen (1848–1874).
74 See Kater, The Twisted Muse, 35–9.
75 See Levi, “Towards an Aesthetic of Fascist Opera.”
76 Kater, The Twisted Muse, 184.
77 Zillig, Das Opfer, 35.
78 Zillig, Das Opfer, 35–42.
79 See Kostka, Materials and Techniques, 198.
80 Furness and Humble, Companion, 99.
81 Davis, Final Mutiny, 396.
82 Phleps, “Zwölftöniges Theater,” 201.
83 Uhland, “Das Opfer,” 60.
84 “Hamburger Uraufführung: Polar-Oper und Polen Ballett,” Neues Musikblatt 33 (January 1938): 34.
85 Fuhrmann, “Winfried Zillig: ‘Das Opfer,’” 1395.
86 Krüger, “Neue Bühnenwerke,” 705.
87 Ohlekopf, “Hamb. Staatsoper,” 645.
88 For example, Chris Walton observes in a passing reference to the opera that “the note of high tragedy is somewhat diminished by a singing and dancing chorus of malevolent penguins.” “Neo-classical Opera,” 118.
89 Zillig, “Das Opfer,” Sommerprogramm, Bayerischer Rundfunk, 54.
90 Winfried Zillig to Fred K. Prieberg, 23 Nov, 1963. Prieberg also held paperwork that indicates that Zillig was not, at least, a member of the NSDAP.
91 Calico, “Schoenberg’s Symbolic Remigration,” 34.
92 Hoffmann, “Vorwort,” 17.
93 See e.g. Bernd Müllman, “Zillig’s Südpol-Oper ‘Das Opfer’.” Hessische Allgemeine, December 8, 1960; Ernst Thomas, “Südpol-Ballade: Zilligs Oper ‘Das Opfer, in Kassel’.” Frankfurter Allgemeine, December 8, 1960.
94 Davis, Final Mutiny, 13.
95 Goering to Baron, 97–8.
96 Quoted in Schuh. So war es, 58.
97 Lüdecke and Summerhayes, The Third Reich, 18.
98 While there are also numerous musical works that date from prior to this time that have strong connections with Antarctica, these are mostly unpublished topical songs. See Philpott, “Notes from the Heroic Age” and “The Sounds of Silence.”
99 For example, two recent operas by Australian composers that are set in Antarctica – Fire on the Snow (2010–2012) by Scott McIntyre and The Call of Aurora (2013) by Joe Bugden – fall within the genre of “chamber opera”: that is, they are operas of small and relatively intimate proportions that employ chamber orchestras or small instrumental ensembles, rather than full orchestras and choirs.