Event details

In this lecture, Larry Wolff, Julius Silver Professor of European History at New York University, will discuss opera and history through the case of Richard Strauss's opera Die Frau ohne Schatten in relation to the period of its creation before, during, and after World War I. In particular, the lecture will address the leading roles in the opera — a fairy-tale emperor and empress — in relation to the last Habsburg emperor and empress, Karl and Zita, who departed from Austria in 1919, the same year their fairy-tale counterparts took the stage in Vienna.