HOFMANNSTHAL, HUGO VON ( b. Vienna, Austria 1 Feb 1874; d. Rodaun, 15 July 1929 )
Like many successful librettists, Hofmannsthal was also a poet and dramatist. His relationship with the composer Richard Strauss began in 1900 when there had been question of them working together on the scenario and music for a ballet. In 1903 their partnership began in earnest when Strauss saw HofmannsthalΓÇÖs play Elektra and it was agreed that they would make it into an opera.
Their creative relationship was as inventive and fruitful as those of Mozart and Da Ponte or Verdi and Boito. In the twenty-eight years between their first contact and HofmannsthalΓÇÖs death Strauss worked with no other librettist. Although they seldom met, they engaged in an extensive correspondence. This has been published and gives fascinating insights into their working methods.
Elektra premièred in 1908 and has remained successful ever since. In it Strauss wrote some of the most challenging music for dramatic sopranos in the operatic repertoire. The opera exemplifies Hofmannsthal’s ability to provide the poetic text that many composers crave for their inspiration, alongside his unerring dramatic judgment.
Thereafter Hofmannsthal provided Strauss with libretti for Der Rosenkavalier, (The Knight of the Rose) (1911), Ariadne auf Naxos (1917), Die Frau ohne Schatten, (The Woman without a Shadow) (1919), Die agyptische Helene, (The Egyptian Helen) (1928), and Arabella, which was premièred in 1930, after the librettist's death.
In 1924 Strauss premièred a reworking of Beethoven's incidental music to Die Ruinen von Athen (The Ruins of Athens), for which Hofmannsthal had written a new text.
Hofmannsthal also wrote the libretto for an opera by the composer Wellesz and his own plays were used as the basis for other contemporary operas, now largely forgotten.
