Von Heute auf Morgen (From One Day to the Next),

suggest the society party, during which the husband is taken with an old friend if his wife’s whilst the latter attracts the attention of a famous opera singer who tries to seduce her. After Erwartnung (Expectation/1924) and Die glückliche Hand (The Lucky Hand / 1924), Von Heute auf Morgen, which was premiered on February 1st, 1930, at the Frankfurt Opera (in a production by Herbert Graf, conducted by William Steinberg) is Arnold Schönberg’s third musical theatre work. It is also the first work in this category that the Austrian composer explicitly describes as an opera. Although it is considered as the first twelve-tone opera in history, and therefore “innovative”, the work nevertheless conforms to the operatic tradition in terms of structure as the opera contains recitatives, arias a the final vocal quartet which employs a surprisingly academic counterpoint technique.