An Aesthetic Deconstruction of R. Wagner’s Mythological Time in “Salome”, by R. Strauss

The article aims to indicate the roots of musical time and musical forms in various types of mythopoetical thought, of which we propose the consideration of musical time within an interdisciplinary context, engaging philosophical concepts and art history studies of mythology. Among the objectives is the necessity to reveal the implicit connections of typical compositional structures in the European opera of the modern era with mythological prototypes; to demonstrate the ways of synthesizing mythological temporal concepts. The subject of research here includes the following aspects: a) mythological time in Wagner’s musical dramas as a synthesis of pagan and Christian ideas (independent of plot), cyclic and finite time; b) time of theatrical play in R. Strauss’s opera Salome; and c) R. Strauss’s composition as an aesthetic deconstruction of Wagner’s musical mythology. Wagner’s legacy inspired many ways to exhibit such deconstruction; among these, R. Strauss’s opera Salome can be considered the most impressive and significant. Wagner’s ideas of Liebestod (in his Tristan und Isolde) and the Christian mystery (in Parsifal) were deconstructed in Strauss’s Salome. An investigation concerning cyclicity in the composition of the opera with its different mythological backgrounds is the main purpose of this research

Musical · Mythology · Opera · Central European and Russian historical studies · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Theater, Performance, and Music History