behest of Winifred, Richard Wagner’s daughter-in-law, for the Bayreuth Festival, filling in for Arturo Toscanini who had declined in protest (it was his first return in 39 years). Alice Strauss did not wish to meet Hitler during the production’s run, but in the end, the hypocritical dictator kindly kissed her hand even though he knew she was “non-Aryan.” Strauss also filled in for a now-denounced Bruno Walter in Berlin – some say at the conductor’s request; others believe it was out of revenge for Walter not programming the composer’s operas. Strauss was dismissed from his official position after serving 20 months once Hitler had intercepted a letter to Zweig criticizing the Nazi regime. To rehabilitate himself, Strauss conducted his Olympische Hymne at the 1936 games. He composed the politically motivated Friedenstag, and in honor of his 75th birthday, Hitler and Goebbels attended the Vienna premiere. Always coming from the weaker position, Strauss had to barter for the safety of his family – at one point Alice and Franz were detained by the Gestapo and on Kristallnacht, the horrific Night of Shattered Glass, his grandchildren were spit at and kicked by Storm Troopers in the public square (November 9, 2013 marks the 75th anniversary of this appalling moment in history). And in 1942, he drove up to the gates of Theresienstadt to save Alice’s incarcerated grandmother, using his customary calling card (“I am Dr. Strauss, the composer”). His request was not granted. Was Strauss guilty, like so many, of mere apathy with regard to the ensuing Holocaust, or was there actual lingering antipathy? That he urged Zweig to return to Germany might indicate how ignorant he was of continued on next page
| arabella
sang for Hitler,” her later negotiations with the Nazis do not appear to have been altogether altruistic). The composer had to settle for director Josef Gielen and conductor Clemens Krauss with the latter’s mistress, Viorica Ursuleac, in the title role. The National Socialists did their best to turn the premiere into a celebrated event of the new Reich and Arabella was judged a success, yet due to the worsening diplomatic situation, it wouldn’t fare as well outside of Germany. Strauss’ own relationship with the new regime has also been found questionable. In November 1933, the composer was retained as president of the Reichsmusikkammer, an appointment which he never asked for (though a telegram discovered long after his death betrays his awareness of the offer). Strauss always claimed he was not a political person and that he worked with the Nazis for the sake of German culture. He privately divulged that he found his new boss Joseph Goebbels distasteful. It is difficult to ascertain his true motivation. His son Franz had married a Jewish woman, Alice von Grab, and she and his grandchildren were subject to the new antiSemitic “race laws.” Strauss’ next collaborator, Stefan Zweig, was also Jewish, and this became a prominent issue at the premiere of his next opera, Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman). When the composer discovered that his librettist’s name had been deliberately left off the program, he demanded that they be reprinted, causing the intendant of the theater to lose his position. The premiere was curiously unattended by officials of the Third Reich, and the opera barely survived a few performances. Undeterred, Strauss thought he had found Hofmannsthal’s successor, but Zweig left Germany and declined any further involvement, although ironically, he would have a small part in the development of three more Strauss operas, all of which would premiere while the National Socialists were in power. Publically, Strauss made other serious gaffes, agreeing to conduct Parsifal at the
15