Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T16:18:39.265Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Marriage as Prostitution

from Part Two - Personal and Cultural Identities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2014

Silvio J. dos Santos
Affiliation:
Assistant professor of musicology at the University of Florida
Get access

Summary

Prostitution is as inseparable from our present marriage customs as the shadow from the substance. They are two sides of the same shield.

—Mona Caird

Bordell ist Ehe [Brothel is Marriage]

—Alban Berg

When Berg explained his progress with composing Lulu in a letter to Schoenberg on August 7, 1930, he had already set his mind on one of the most important distinctions between his new opera and the plays by Frank Wedekind on which the libretto was based: namely, the return of Lulu's “victims” (her husbands) as her clients in the final scene. After describing the role of the orchestral interlude between the first and second scenes of act 2 as the “focal point for the whole tragedy,” Berg added this parenthetical comment: “(Incidentally: the 4 men [actually three] who visit Lulu in her attic room are to be portrayed in the opera by the same singers who fall victim to her in the first half of the opera. In reverse order, however).” Although he originally planned to bring them back in reverse order to establish a large-scale palin-dromic structure, he later opted to retain the same order as their presentation in the original play. In the final version, Lulu's first husband, Dr. Goll, whose death occurs in the first scene of act 1, returns as the Silent Professor; the Painter, who commits suicide in the second scene, returns as the Negro; and Dr. Schön, who is killed in the first scene of act 2, returns as Lulu's final client, Jack the Ripper.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×