A Film Which Interprets the Music, an Opera Which Ceases to Sing: The Relationship between Schoenberg’s Theater Pieces and the Cinema from the 1910s to the 1920s

Abstract

This essay seeks to clarify the change in Schoenberg’s attitude toward the cinema between the 1910s and the 1920s. First, by examining the plan to incorporate a silent film in the performance of his theater piece Die glückliche Hand (1910-13), it reveals that the use of a film was supposed to contribute to creating musical elements with synthetic elements, including lightings, colors, gestures and the gazes of the performers. Second, through an examination of Von heute auf morgen (1929-30), this essay examines the multifaceted use of dodecaphonic and vocal techniques including “Sprechstimme” (speaking voice). This essay argues that piece should be understood as a self-reflexive reconsideration of the opera as a genre whose commercial and aesthetic status was threatened by the emergence of the cinema.