ABSTRACT
Willi Schuh suggests that the problem was primarily a musical one: Richard Strauss needed to invent new, dance-like motives that would combine effectively with the motives he already had. It is well known that Strauss composed the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ after he had finished the rest of the opera. Ever the professional, Strauss wanted to have control over as many aspects of the production as possible, an attitude which derived from the Wagnerian concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk. Less well known is the scenario that Strauss sketched out for the ‘Dance’, probably in the 1920s. This was discovered by Schuh and first published in a Swiss periodical; it has since reappeared in a variety of places, but only once in English, and then in a book that is no longer in print.
