The dead City
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The dead City |
Graz Opera House , 2015 |
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| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Erich Wolfgang Korngold |
| Libretto : | Paul Schott |
| Premiere: | 4th December 1920 |
| Place of premiere: | City Theater Hamburg and City Theater Cologne |
| Playing time: | approx. 2 ½ hours |
| Place and time of the action: |
Bruges , late 19th century |
| people | |
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Die tote Stadt , op. 12, is a thoroughly composed opera in three pictures with music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and texts by Paul Schott , a pseudonym under which Julius Korngold , Erich Wolfgang Korngold's father, and the composer himself worked together. The libretto is based on the symbolist novel Das tote Brugge ( Bruges-la-morte , 1892; German translation: 1903) by Georges Rodenbach (1855–1898). Korngold, who was considered a “ child prodigy ”, was only 23 years old at the time of the premiere.
Performance history
The opera was premiered with great success on December 4, 1920 at the same time in the Stadttheater Hamburg (conductor: Egon Pollak ) and in the Stadttheater Cologne (conductor: Otto Klemperer ). Up until the 1950s, performances followed on around 80 stages worldwide, including in 1921 at the Metropolitan Opera , where Maria Jeritza made her Met debut in the role of Marietta. The work was later banned from the program by the National Socialists . After Korngold's death, the piece was largely forgotten, but has been performed again more regularly since 1967 ( Volksoper Wien ) and the 1970s: A first complete recording was made in the New York City Opera , and in 1983 Götz Friedrich's production at the Deutsche Oper Berlin - the was later also taken over to the Vienna State Opera - recorded for television and later appeared on CD.
In Korngold's birthplace Brno, The Dead City was played for the first time in May 2002 as part of the Korngold Festival. The production came from Ansgar Haag . Ivan Pařík was the musical director . A recording was shown on Czech television. Anselm Weber staged the opera in Frankfurt in 2009 . A recent performance was staged by Johannes Erath in 2015 at the Graz Opera House in the equipment of Herbert Murauer , and in 2019 by Simon Stone at the Bavarian State Opera under the musical direction of Kirill Petrenko . By 2015 there were around 550 performances worldwide.
occupation
orchestra
- Piccolo (also 3rd flute), 2 flutes (2nd also 2nd piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets in Bb, bass clarinet in Bb, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon
- 4 horns, 3 trumpets, bass trumpet, 3 trombones, tuba,
- Mandolin, 2 harps, celesta, piano, harmonium,
- 4 timpani, percussion (glockenspiel, xylophone, triangle, tambourine, ratchet, snare drum, bass drum with cymbal, free-hanging cymbal, tam-tam, rod),
- Strings
On stage
- organ
- 2 trumpets
- 2 clarinets
- triangle
- Tambourine
- Small and big drum
- pool
- 7 deep bells
- Wind machines
- 1st box on the right: 2 trumpets, 2 trombones
action
Place and time: Bruges , late 19th century
first act
Paul lives in a room in Bruges that he calls “the church of the past”, because everything in it reminds him of his late wife Marie. Marie appears to him in a vision and declares that the day will come when he will own her again. Brigitta, Paul's housekeeper, announces a veiled woman. The dancer Marietta then enters the room. Because she looks very much like Marie, she manages to cast a spell over Paul. He gives her the lute and a scarf from his late wife so that Marietta looks even more like her. With the lute Marietta sings the aria Glück, which remained for me . When Marietta accidentally reveals a picture of Marie, Paul is startled and Marietta leaves the memorial room.
Second act
Paul has fallen in love with Marietta and is looking for her. This is with her theater group, surrounded by admirers. Paul watched in secret, as the group the Raise Dead by Helene from the opera Robert le Diable by Giacomo Meyerbeer rehearsing. He then accuses her of despising her and only loving her because she resembles his late wife. Marietta now offers all of her seduction skills to prove him wrong.
Third act
Marietta asks Paul either to love her completely or not at all. She begins to provoke him, and after taking a lock of Mary from the shrine, Marietta begins to dance in front of Paul. This makes Paul so angry that he strangles Marietta.
Now Paul comes to and realizes that the plot of the second and third act was just a dream. Marietta comes back to take the umbrella and roses that she had forgotten at the end of the first act. He describes his vision to his friend Frank. This advises him to leave the "Church of the Past". Paul promises to follow his friend's advice and leave Bruges, the dead city, for good.
music
In contrast to the avant-garde attitude of the Vienna School around Schönberg , Berg and Webern , which propagated atonality and later the twelve-tone technique , the composer of this opera cultivated a late romantic style, shaped by his teacher Alexander von Zemlinsky , Richard Wagner's chromatics and leitmotif technique , as well the Orchestrierungstechnik of Richard Strauss . Korngold's score also shows influences from Verismo Puccini . The most famous numbers of the opera are the duet between Paul and Marietta "Glück, das mir verblieb" (Marietta's song) and the enthusiastic, melancholy baritone aria "Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen".
The work was published by the publishing house B. Schott's Sons in Mainz.
literature
- Arne Stollberg : Through the dream to life. Erich Wolfgang Korngold's opera “Die tote Stadt” . Mainz 2003, 2nd edition 2004 ( Music in the Canon of the Arts , 1)
Web links
- Die tote Stadt - Libretto in German and English (PDF 2.09 MB)
- The Dead City : Sheet Music and Audio Files in the International Music Score Library Project
- The story of The Dead City at Opera-Guide
- Audio samples from the Austrian Mediathek : "Glück, das mir gut": recording with Maria Jeritza , recording with Joseph Schmidt
- The dead city , details , Schott Music
- All publications on shellac, LP, CD, DVD
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b List of all performances , Schott Music
- ↑ faz.net
- ↑ Thomas Schacher: Psychotherapy in three pictures . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , May 12, 2014