“Best to have the opera house bombarded”

Abstract

In a hitherto unpublished letter to his father of 1 October 1878, Hugo Wolf scathingly reviews a performance of Wagner's Tannhäuser directed by Hans Richter, concluding on the grim joke that the Vienna Court Opera, for the sake of music, should be demolished by the Austrian army. The letter also contains a metaphysically disillusioned view of consolation (“Trost”) - Wolf compares it to intoxication (“Rausch”) - rather significant given that idea's rôle both in his early and his mature work.