Page - 92 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

92 | Entangled Entertainers Th e diff ering senses of temporality and the diff erent ways of dealing with foreign artists were decisive but did not constitute the only distinction between the Volkssänger and vaudeville. Th ey also had diff erent approaches to everyday life. If the Volkssänger enjoyed a leisurely tempo, the variety shows embodied an accelerated pace of life. We see this in particular in their performance program. In order to be able to aff ord world-famous stars like Sarah Bernhard, vaudeville managers had to fi ll the grandiose performance halls to capacity.56 It was im- portant to shield their audiences from any hint of boredom, lest their customers disperse in search of something more exciting. In order to keep the public’s inter- est, variety shows frequently changed their li neup. Individual performances were often discontinued after a short time and replaced by new attractions. More than a few performance hall managers bit off more than they could chew and found themselves forced to fi le for bankruptcy.57 In contrast to the vaudeville variety shows, the Volkssänger troupes, commit- ted to the tried and true, distinguished themselves in their overall lack of inno- vative spirit. Th is shortage of innovation was sometimes so apparent that even those who sympathized with the Volkssänger complained. A 1902 article from Das Variété identifi es this shortage as a major reason for the declining popularity of Volkssänger performances among the Viennese: “In the nervous rush that has today seized even the lowest classes of the population, it has become a natural ne- cessity to stimulate the audience and this certainly does not happen by [merely] repeating the very oldest performances.”58 Th is quotation points to the gap between what the Volkssänger off ered in the form of entertainment and what audiences demanded and expected. Th e shift in public interest was not only the result of the Volkssänger performers failing to introduce change and renewal, but it was also connected to a larger widespread cultural phenomenon. Frequent repetitions of the same performance program contradicted the zeitgeist in fi n-de-siècle Vienna. People wanted something new, something spectacular; they no longer wished to be entertained by the estab- lished and the familiar. Th e prevailing mood went beyond variety shows and increasingly determined people’s everyday lives. A vivid example of this develop- ment was the rapidly increasing circulation of the tabloids, which endeavored to disseminate important events as promptly as possible through their morning and evening editions and to satisfy readers’ thirst for information as quickly as possi- ble.59 Even the writing style employed in the tabloid papers adapted to the new way of managing time. Th e articles became easier to peruse, the sentences became shorter, and the information was kept to the essentials so that reading would not cost an unnecessary amount of time.60 New experiences of increased acceleration and velocity characterized daily life in the late nineteenth century.61 We see this new understanding of time not least in the steep increase in the production and sales of pocket watches. Large swathes of the population became accustomed to experiencing shorter intervals of time. Th ey increasingly measured activities in This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.