About the work
Neues vom Tage is Paul Hindemith's comic opera to a libretto by Marcellus Schiffer, premiered on 8 June 1929 at Berlin's Kroll Opera under Otto Klemperer. A typical 'Zeitoper' (opera of the day), it mixes operetta, jazz and popular song and takes aim at the media marketing of modern everyday life. For a 1954 Naples production, Hindemith reworked the piece into a two-act Italian version.
Plot
The married couple Eduard and Laura want a divorce and turn to the shady broker Hermann to procure grounds for one. A scandal at a hotel unexpectedly turns them into a media sensation; enterprising managers publicly market the pair as a divorcing couple, until Eduard and Laura realise they still love each other — even as their public image as a separated couple has taken on a life of its own.
Cultural significance
The opera became notorious for a coloratura aria that Laura sings while bathing in a tub, a symbol of the exposure of private life that the work satirises. Even before 1933, the scene gave Nazi critics a target for their attacks on Hindemith.