Richard Strauss, Stefan Zweig, Joseph Gregor and the Story of the Celestina Opera that Almost was, with a Bibliographical Appendix of Celestina Operas in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Stefan Zweig, the famed Austrian novelist and Jew, colaborated as librettist in Richard Strauss' Die Schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman) in 1935 and afterward suggested to the composer an opera based on Celestina. Strauss was interested and desired that Zweig work on it with him, but in Hitler’s Germany, Zweig was fearful of further collaborations and suggested that he work with Josef Gregor, a theater historian. The whole story of this unrealized opera project —almost never mentioned in Strauss biograhies— is retold here from the letters that passed between the three. We include in two appendices an English version of the ten-page sketch produced for Strauss by Gregor, and a review of operas based on Celestina in the twentieth century.