Forward to the Baroque - Egon Wellesz´s Gesamtkunstwerk

Egon Wellesz (18851974) was highly regarded both as a musicologist (in Vienna and Oxford) and as a composer associated with the Second Viennese School. Through his research, he made crucial contributions to the study of early Baroque music and particularly Baroque festival opera. Building on this foundation, he developed an operatic reform for contemporary music theatre, which he published in his scholarly writings. In doing so, he pursued the ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), which he attempted to realize in his stage works from the first half of the 20th centuryespecially in Alkestis and Die Bakchantinnen. The study first examines how Wellesz understood Baroque music and specifically Viennese festival opera, and what influences Guido Adler, Arnold Schoenberg, and Gustav Mahler had on him. This is followed by a historical contextualization that illuminates the alleged crisis of opera in the first half of the 20th centurythe crisis that Wellesz saw as the impetus for his reform. Based on a detailed presentation of Welleszs operatic reform and his conception of a contemporary Gesamtkunstwerk, his stage works are then examined for the extent to which they were influenced by his historical studies. The focus is particularly on those elements that draw on historical models while simultaneously being realized through modern means: the libretto, the stage (with set design, lighting, costumes, etc.), and dance.