The new German opera of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was intended both to reflect the Germany of the imagination and to help actualize the... » 

The new German opera of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was intended both to reflect the Germany of the imagination and to help actualize the vision of a new nation. The search for a new German opera by critics and composers alike was therefore not merely an aesthetic movement but also a political and social critique. The new German opera of the late eighteenth and early ninteenth centuries was intended both to reflect the Germany of the imagination and to help actualize the vision of a new nation. The search for a new German opera by critics and composers alike was therefore not merely an aesthetic movement but also a political and social critique. Stephen C. Meyer examines Webers operas Der Freischtz and Euryanthe as well as Etienne Mhuls Joseph and Peter von Winters Das unterbrochene Opferfest in light of aesthetic and nationalistic writings of contemporaneous German critics. The volume includes a detailed analysis of the Wolfs Glen scene from Der Freischtz and numerous previously unavailable English translations of German primary sources. «