Celebrating Hungary? Johann Strauss's <em>Der Zigeunerbaron</em> and the Press in <em>Fin-de-Siècle</em> Vienna and Budapest
2017; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 25; Linguagem: Inglês
10.5699/austrianstudies.25.2017.0118
ISSN2222-4262
Autores Tópico(s)Central European national history
ResumoPrepared by almost half a century of 'Magyar mania' in Vienna, the 1885 world premiere of Johann Strauss' 'Hungarian' operetta Der Zigeunerbaron in the Theater an der Wien surpassed even the most optimistic expectations.However, while a number of Hungarian dignitaries also attended the premiere, the reception showed a discrepancy in how the two nominally ruling nations of the Habsburg Monarchy saw the operetta's merits and what it actually celebrated.What to the Viennese seemed full of exotic colour evoking historical memories and the local 'Wienerisch' element was for Hungarians an occasion to seek recognition in the imperial capital.The reception in the Budapest Opera House two decades later in 1905 and in Vienna's Hofoper in 1910 further accentuated this difference.While Strauss' work remained immensely popular among the public, it provoked differentthough equally heateddiscussions in the press on the nature of music culture, the place of the opera house in it, and the importance of local and national traditions however understood.This article contrasts the premieres, aiming to distinguish the features of Austria-Hungary's celebratory culture that, on one hand, served to reconfirm existing loyalties and sentiments and, on the other, provided for an impressive degree of flexibility to accommodate very different agendas and practices.In recent decades, Johann Strauss' 'Hungarian' operetta Der Zigeunerbaron [Gypsy Baron, 1885] became subject of a number of studies in the wake of new revisionist scholarship on the Habsburg Empire.Scholars from Péter Hanák to Moritz Csáky to Camille Crittenden emphasized its profoundly reconciliatory role in the political and cultural climate
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