The Lucky Hand (scene 2)

Arnold Schönberg’s “Drama with Music in One Act” Die glückliche Hand (The Lucky Hand) was first performed in the Vienna Volksoper on 14 October 1924. Schönberg had published the text already in 1911. It was written between September 1909 and June 1910. Although Schönberg had at the same time started on drafts for the music, it was only at the end of 1913 that he finished the work. Scene 2: “A somewhat larger stage area; deeper and wider than the first. In the background a soft, blue, skylike backdrop. Below, left, close to the bright brown earth, a circular cut-out five feet in diameter through which glaring, yellow sunlight spreads over the stage. No other lighting but this, and it must be very intense. The side curtains are of pleated, hanging material, soft yellow-green in color.”