Rebecca Schmid, PhD

is an independent scholar, music writer and culture journalist

“Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning ... except its own.”
— Leonard Bernstein
 

Recent Articles

Print Journalism
A Child Star of the 19th Century Gains New Fame
A Child Star of the 19th Century Gains New Fame

She began performing her own compositions from the piano when she was eight, winning attention from the press in Vienna and abroad. Johann Strauss — father and son — both conducted her waltzes at balls in Vienna and dedicated their own works to the young star. … Geiger’s activities were also intertwined with bel canto composers such as Donizetti.

Mark Manders’ enternal Self-Portrait
Mark Manders’ enternal Self-Portrait

“I’m kind of shy in person,” Manders told Rebecca in interview for the New York Times, “but as an artist I am not. If I compare myself now to 20 years ago, I have more language also because there are objects that generate other objects. I think I have a chance to say something more specific.”

Christophe Rouset on Opera Rarities
Christophe Rouset on Opera Rarities

For the magazine Opernwelt, Rouset spoke about about conducting Salieri, Lully, Méhul and more. “A singer who has already sung the role of Figaro a hundred times comes up with his own interpretation,” he said. “When I rehearse a work that is completely untouched, I am the one who leads everyone involved...”

Weill, Blitzstein and Bernstein: A Study of Influence (University of Rochester Press/Boydell & Brewer) - available to order

Rebecca’s recently released book explores how Kurt Weill’s formal innovations laid the groundwork for the music theater of Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein although they either resisted or downplayed his aesthetic contribution to American tradition. Comparative analysis based on Harold Bloom’s Anxiety of Influence and other modes of intertextuality reveals that the principles of Weill’s opera reform would catalyze an indigenous movement in sophisticated, socially engaged music theatre.