The Fragile Modern Artist in Schreker’s Christophorus and Berg’s Lulu
The Fragile Modern Artist in Schreker’s Christophorus and Berg’s Lulu

Summary/Abstract: This study presents a comparative reading of Franz Schreker’s Christophorus oder “Die Vision einer Oper” and Alban Berg’s Lulu, focusing on how both operas construct and dismantle the figure of the composer from within their dramatic framework. Centring on the characters Anselm and Alwa, the study shows how both libretti depict artistic ambition as increasingly compromised by the narrative systems it helps to generate. Rather than affirming creative mastery, the operas stage processes of self-implication in which the artist’s authority gradually dissolves through reflexive dramaturgy, symbolic projection, and narrative constraint. By examining how creation turns back upon its originator, the study reveals a shared concern with the instability of artistic agency in the early twentieth century. Reading Schreker and Berg together highlights convergent strategies for representing the artist’s vulnerability and offers a new perspective on how opera approached questions of authorship, control, and selfhood during the Weimar era.

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