“Die letzten Tage der Oper” (Skira 2023) January 24, 2023

Last Days of the Oper

The title is inspired by the epic drama The Last Days of Mankind by Karl Kraus. Published in full in 1922, its author ridicules the interconnected ills of modernity that he saw as fueling the war machine (nationalism, capitalism, unbridled technology, militarism, journalistic unscrupulousness) as well as the Viennese cultural scene of the time. The drama bears chilling parallels to our world in 2020. The goal of the anthology, which includes some 100 essays, is to consider the relevance of opera in today’s dystopian world and to look to possible developments in the genre in the foreseeable future.