A Brief Comment on Freud's Attendance at Opera Performances: 1880-1890

Little is known of the real record of Freud's attendances at opera performances. In the first volume of The Life and Works of Sigmund Freud, Jones (1953), referring to the decade of 1880-1890, writes:

Only three operas are mentioned in these years. Breuer took him once to see Carmen [1875]. A little later he was shocked to find that his friend Shönberg did not know that Don Giovanni [1787] was composed by Mozart, so he insisted on taking him to see it; he referred to the irresistible Lucca who played Zerlina. Martha and he had seen the opera in their days together in Vienna. Then there was nothing for two years, when he decided to complete his Mozart education by seeing the Magic Flute [1791]. This proved rather disappointing (p. 178).

Recently, Vitz (1988) has quoted this same paragraph as evidence of Freud's limited exposure to and dislike of music. In view of this situation, the following evidence is presented, suggesting that two more operas and two operettas can be added presently to this scarce list, duplicating these figures. Granted, seven is not much, but it is more than double of three. Maybe more evidence will appear in the future.

In the previous page to the above quote, when reporting on the period spent in Paris, Jones (1953) wrote, “With his friend Darkschewitsch he went to see Figaro, where he badly missed the melodies of the opera; the latter he had seen in Vienna in Martha's company” (p. 177). However, Freud met Martha in 1882 (Jones, 1953). Thus it seems to be an oversight of Jones that Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro was excluded from the trio of operas.

In a letter to Martha, written in Paris in 1886, Freud narrates an experience when he went with Jules Bernays to the Comedie Française to see Beaumarchais' (1732-1799) Le mariage de Figaro. In it, he reminds her that she knows the plot because they had seen the opera together (similar to Jones'