Hugo von Hofmannsthal was born in Vienna on February 1, 1874, at which university he studied law, and died in 1929 At sixteen he wrote his first poems and seventeen his first short piece in verse, Yesterday, published in pseudonym Loris. His early poems lyrical and melancholic -reflexiones about appearance and reality, transience and eternity gained immediate acclaim in Austria and Germany. During the following years he wrote short pieces in verse, among which Titian's death (1892) and Crazy and death (1893). In 1901, a crisis that the author tries to express in his Letter of Lord Chandos, had to leave the poetry, claiming that language alone was insufficient as a means of expression. Thereafter he devoted himself to adapt numerous works of playwrights. His piece Everyone (1911), based on the English drama Everyman, has been representing the annual Salzburg Festival (who helped found along with the theater director Max Reinhardt) since 1920 Richard Strauss's opera adapted Electra (1903) Hofmannsthal, which was performed in 1909 Subsequently, Hofmannsthal wrote five scripts for the same composer, which was a great collaborator, including the Rosenkavalier and Ariadne auf Naxos (1912) are regarded as masterpieces . Their -a straddles two ages-written, it appears that Hofmannsthal was undoubtedly a lucid witness the end of a culture.