Genoveva: Robert Schumann's Blueprint for a New Germany

Abstract

This study proposes to offer a new perspective on Schumann’s opera Genoveva. Mostly criticized for its lack of drama – both by nineteenth-century and present-day critics – it will be shown that Schumann not primarily intended to display a (psychological) drama. First, the main issues of the social and political debate in the first half of the nineteenth century in the German states will be sketched. An analysis of Schumann’s libretto, and the two plays by Ludwig Tieck and Friedrich Hebbel on which it was based, will demonstrate that Schumann deliberately chose to discuss moral and social issues at the expense of drama. A contemporary treatise by Ignaz Franz von Mosel will help to categorize the music according to moral and social issues, as emerged from the libretto. Consequently, a thorough musical analysis of each category will demonstrate Schumann’s very personal, and experimental operatic language.