Reclaiming Expressionism: Hindemith’s Operatic Triptych

On the evening of 26 March 1922, Oper Frankfurt did not hold back with images of the violent, the disturbing, or the grotesque. Paul Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna was premiered that night alongside his two other one-act operas, Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen and Das Nusch-Nuschi, which had only recently been given their first performances at the Württembergisches Landestheater in Stuttgart on 4 June 1921. The evening began with Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen, a battle of the sexes culminating with the male protagonist violently murdering a woman and all those around them. This was followed by Sancta Susanna, the story of a nun who, unable to resist sexual temptations, is immured behind a wall as punishment. With Das Nusch-Nuschi, a parody of opera and commedia dell’arte, the evening’s performances concluded with a pantomime of deceit and seduction and the slaying of a creature half-rat, half-caiman.