Franz Lehár's Friederike as Weimar Middlebrow Culture

Abstract

Franz Lehár's 1928 Berlin operetta Friederike boasts an unusual subject: a romantic incident in the early life of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Weimar Berlin is usually considered as a haven for experimentation between high and low culture, a bifurcated view which has dominated German studies, but in this article I argue that Friederike is best considered as an example of the middlebrow. I examine the many sources which contributed to Friederike, from Goethe to Wagner to contemporary plays; analyse the score's stylistic allusions and the performance of star tenor Richard Tauber; and finally turn to Lehár's rhetorical positioning of his work on the Berlin theatrical scene. I argue that operetta scholarship itself has traditionally been ill-equipped to deal with Lehár's late works and operetta more generally, and that middlebrow studies’ nuanced consideration of questions of art, commerce and prestige can contribute more widely to operetta and Weimar historiography.