The Shadow of the Empress: Fairy-Tale Opera and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy
Mar 5, 2026 — 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The Department of History and the Chair of Slovak and Central European Studies of the University of Ottawa are host to this exciting lecture, followed by a wine and cheese reception.
Program
This lecture will explore the connections between Richard Strauss’s opera Die Frau ohne Schatten and the twilight of the Habsburg Empire. Professor Wolff will analyze how the shadow of Empress Maria Theresa loomed over the opera’s creation during World War I, symbolizing the anxieties of a crumbling monarchy.
The lecture will be followed by a wine and cheese reception.
This event is possible thanks to the support of the Austrian Embassy and the Jana-Maria Murin-Diez Guest Lecture Fund.
Guest Speaker
Larry Wolff, Julius Silver Professor of European History (New York University)
Larry Wolff is a leading scholar in the history of Eastern Europe, the Habsburg Monarchy, and the Enlightenment. His major works include Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford UP, 1994) and The Idea of Galicia (Stanford UP, 2010).
