ABSTRACT
Von heute auf morgen [From One Day to the Next] was Arnold Schoenberg’s response to Zeitoper; the extraordinarily popular operatic genre of the later 1920s. 1 Why did Schoenberg write Von heute auf morgen, his only compositional foray into light-hearted comedy? Was he truly attracted to Zeitoper; a genre that attempted to capture the spirit of the time through the use of contemporary themes and characters; or was he in fact rejecting it, intending his opera as an alternative and a critique? What does the opera tell us about Schoenberg’s attitude toward popular culture, specifically the cultural life in Berlin of the period? The relationship of Schoenberg’s opera to Zeitoper is not a simple one. This essay explores some of these issues through an examination of both the libretto and music of the opera, in the context of the political, social, and cultural climate of the time.
