In the early days of the Weimar Republic, Richard Strauss tried
to persuade the theater critic Alfred Kerr to write a
libretto for a theatrical-political operetta entitled Revolution,
which was to have featured, in the composer's words, “workers' and
industrial councils, prima-donna intrigues, tenor ambitions, resigning
directors of the old regime ... a National Assembly, soldier societies, party
politicking while the people starve, a pimp as Culture Minister, a
criminal as War Minister, a murderer as Justice Minister," and,
somewhere in the middle, an echt-Romantic, Hans Pfitzner-like composer
who fleeces wealthy Jews while spouting anti-Semitic remarks. To the anguish of posterity, nothing came of the project.
