The period of Mahler’s directorship of the Vienna Court Opera corresponded with the emergence of that city’s Secession movement, with a younger generation of daring visual artists challenging the prevailing aesthetic orthodoxy. Although Mahler himself evinced relatively little interest in the debate or indeed in the visual arts themselves, the rise of the Secession did affect him, through his wife’s continuing bonds with that world and through his occasional collaborations with Secessionists: first at the 1902 Beethoven exhibition centered around Max Klinger’s monumental sculpture, and more deeply in the ongoing work with Alfred Roller on operatic productions. At the same time, more conservative elements, such as the historicism evident in the Ringstrasse building projects or the Gründerzeit grandeur of Hans Makart, also had their impact, not least for their high commercial and social profile. A survey of these competing currents gives some sense of the lively, messy cultural milieu in which Mahler spent his peak years as a European conductor and administrator.

This chapter explores the nature of European celebrity ca. 1900 as a context for Mahler’s mission to promote himself and his works among the public at large. Figures such as Igor Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt, Charlotte Wolter, and Hans Makart found ways in their respective fields to walk the line between popular success and artistic achievement, maintaining highbrow prestige while intriguing the public to a significant degree, particularly among the educated middle class. The growth of a consumer class, and the proliferation of opportunities for that class to consume those celebrities and personalize them in the process, provided a rationale for the lower middle class to push up against the cultural capital of the educated bourgeoisie. In this environment, Mahler’s creative project, as creator and as performing artist, emerged as a recognizable, if idiosyncratic, attempt at artistic fame in the modern sense.