Sancta Susanna

Sancta Susanna
Opera by Paul Hindemith
The composer in 1923
Librettist	August Stramm
Language	German
Premiere	26 March 1922 (1922-03-26) Frankfurt Opera

Sancta Susanna is an early opera by Paul Hindemith in one act, with a German libretto by August Stramm. Composed over a two-week period in January/February 1921, its premiere was on 26 March 1922, at the Frankfurt Opera.

The work is his third and final in a triptych of expressionist influenced one-act operas - the previous two being Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen op. 12 (1921), and Das Nusch-Nuschi op. 20 (1921) – and much like the previous works, scandalised Frankfurt’s concert going public, affording the young composer heightened critical attention and notoriety.

Sancta Susanna examines the relationship between celibacy and lust in Christianity, depicting the descent of a nunnery into sexual frenzy. Hindemith, around this time in his career has often been regarded, ‘a twenty-four-year-old dabbling in the realm of German expressionism’, and although it cannot be described as a fully fledged work of expressionism, the opera undoubtedly shows a significant reflexivity on the composer’s part to such contemporary artistic trends.

Much like his contemporaries, Hindemith spoke of the early twentieth century as a time in which ‘the old world exploded’, and artists were forced to make sense of this changed world by disregarding to a large extent, codes and conventions that had been established - in some cases - for centuries. Thus in the libretto (from the notable expressionist poet and playwright August Stramm) stage directions dominate over speech, which is highly fragmented through ellipses and incomplete phrases. Central to the opera is the expressionistic notion of shock as a means of articulating oneself, and musically, this was achieved to a large extent by pushing harmonic and tonal processes ‘to the very limits of tonality’. Hindemith did not however, divorce himself entirely from formalism, and the work is structured in a series of variations.

The controversy generated by the opera upon its premiere is reflected in the difficulty Hindemith faced, getting the work performed in the first place. Among his problems was finding a competent and willing conductor. Fritz Busch, who had premiered the composer’s earlier operas, and who was seen as both progressive, and a champion of Hindemith’s work, refused to offer his services on moral grounds. Upon its premiere, contemporary critic, Karl Grunsky wrote that the performance ‘signifies a desecration of our cultural institutions’, and at a performance in Hamburg, concert goers were required to pledge in writing not to cause a disturbance during the performance. Even as recently as 2007, performances of the work have attracted criticism from Christian organisations.