Correlating Symbolisms of Womanhood and Marriage in the Libretti of Schoenberg's Von heute auf morgen and Berg's Lulu

Abstract

Von heute auf morgen and Lulu, the twelve-tone operas of Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg, respectively, can be interpreted as works that sought to uphold a traditional formalism of Germanic opera construction amidst the post-Expressionistic aesthetics that the newer Zeitoper style strove to abolish. This new style aimed to popularize opera by embracing a new simplicity of contemporary values that discouraged the perpetuation of prior operatic dispositions. This dichotomy of old vs. new is presented in an analysis of the Von heute and Lulu libretti that traces their symbolic representation of womanhood and marriage from the male gaze, whereby an overlapping depiction emerges in both operas in their similar but varying treatment of these themes as parodies of their composers' time and the ongoing cultural conflict between moralities rooted in the past and non-conforming values that embrace modernized change.