Introduction

This introduction presents overall key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses opera Tiefland which introduces an evocative representation of life in the high mountains that is completely absent from the play. It explains that Richard Strauss chose to take a stand when he provocatively fused the "absolute" genre of the symphony with the graphically illustrated alpine landscape of his Eine Alpensinfonie. The book describes that all these alpinist themes valley and summit, love of nature, the sublime and heroic, camaraderie and gender conflict would resurface in a medium. It discusses Zeitopern, topical operas, to consider the alignment of the pure climber with the artist. The book remediates opera as auratic cinema. It also suggests that the "cult of mountains" needs to be understood as a cultural trope that takes multiple forms, foregrounds different modes of experience, and leads to disparate conclusions.