1897-1907
Foto: Korngold-Society
1897: a musical prodigy is born!
1903: pianist,
1909: attracts attention as a composer of a ballet, piano sonata and orchestral suite.
His father Julius Korngold, a strict music critic in Vienna, allows Erich, on the advice of Gustav Mahler, to take music lessons with fellow composer Alexander Zemlinsky. This takes a short time, because Zemlinsky can not teach Erich anything anymore.
Richard Strauss is impressed by Erich's boldly innovative music.
1916: successful premieres of two one-act operas.
1917: conductor in Vienna
1920: Korngold's new opera 'Die Tote Stadt/The Dead City' is an unprecedented success in Hamburg and Cologne.
1921: Even more sensational is the reception of 'Die Tote Stadt' in Vienna and the Metropolitan Opera of New York.
2019: Website 'Operavision' describes this opera as a "musical psycho thriller"!:
The musical world of Erich Wolfgang Korngold is multifaceted and grand.
He experiments with jazz in compositions such as 'Babyserenade', but also enthusiastically pours his heart into the adaptation of several operettas.
Korngold adapts e.g. from Johann Strauss Jr. : 'Das Spitzentuch der Königin/The Queen's Lace Handkerchief' and 'Eine Nacht in Venedig/A Night in Venice'.
Korngold gives the first work a new name: 'Das Lied der Liebe/The Song of Love' (now available on CD!).
'Eine Nacht in Venedig' he enriches with 'Sei mir gegrüsst, du holdes Venezia' (for the famous Richard Tauber)
In addition, he defends on musical grounds Imre Kálmán against criticism of his later operettas.
In 1938 the Nazis declare "Die Tote Stadt" by the Jewish composer Korngold as "entartete" opera.
Hollywood, however, also appeals to him. Korngold does not, for one minute, doubt and leaves Austria.
Shortly afterwards, Korngold is regarded in Hollywood as one of the very first "creators of symphonic film score". In 1939, 1940 and 1941 the film world rewarded him with an Oscar.
After the 2nd Worldwar Korngold returns to Europe. But then something happens to him, that happened to Paul Abraham and Imre Kálmán too: his new compositions, including an opera, do not be well received. Music critics suddenly think to hear pompous film music and outdated sounds from a bygone world.
Korngold - now a heart patient - is full of bitterness. A second time he emigrates to the VS. He dies 1957 in Los Angeles.
Last photo Erich Wolfgang Korngold 1957
(forbiddenmusic.org)
After 1970 Korngold's star is rising again!
His film music AND his classical instrumental/vocal compositions are nowadays subject of worldwide revaluation.
Die Tote Stadt/The Dead City
is the Belgian city of BRUGES.
The old city symbolizes the self-chosen isolation of the young widower Paul. Paul suffers from the loss of his dead wife Marie. He worships her portrait and golden hair braids.
One day a veiled girl appears to him. She sings Marie's favorite song on Paul's request. Paul sings with her.
Marietta:
Joy, that near to me remains,
Come to me, my true love.
Night sinks into the grove
You are my light and day.
Anxiously beats heart on heart
Hope itself soars heavenward.
Paul:
How true, a sad song.
The song of true love,
that must die .........
I know the song.
I heard it often in younger,
in better days.
It has yet another verse—
Do I know it still?
Marietta, Paul:
Though sorrow becomes dark,
Come to me, my true love.
Lean (to me) your pale face
Death will not separate us.
If you must leave me one day,
Believe, there is an afterlife...
The girl takes off her veil and appears to be Marie's image in Paul's mind's eye. Paul is now in a constant dream state, in which he believes, he has Marie back.
In the second act, which takes place outside in the streets of Bruges, the girl appears to be called Marietta and as a dancer she is part of a group of fairground artists. She humiliates Paul in the midst of her friends. If he wants to stay with her, she wants to go to his own house.
The third act - again at Paul's home - is largely in a dream world:
Marietta wants Paul to kiss her. He has to choose between death and life. Paul does not choose, after which Mariëtta drapes the golden braids of Marie around her neck and starts seductively dancing. Paul dashes to Marietta and strangles her with the braids.
Then Paul wakes up from his dream. Marietta's body has disappeared.
The veiled woman reappears. It is Marietta, who has forgotten her umbrella. Paul ignores her, after which she shrugs her shoulders and leaves his room.
Paul's friend Frank now comes into the room.
Paul's final song makes Frank (and us) clear that he shakes off death and chooses for life:
! Please, listen to the content of the final song, which is totally opposite to the song of Marie/Marietta from the first act !
Bruges-la-Morte
is the novel by the Belgian writer Georges Rodenbach (1855-1898), on which Paul Schott based the textbook for 'Die Tote Stadt'.
The name "Paul Schott" is a playful pseudonym for father and son Korngold, who wrote the texts together.
"Paul" suggests that Paul's experiences in the opera could have been autobiographical (which is not so).
"Schott" is the name of one of the biggest and oldest music publishers in Europe: "Schott Music" in Mainz, since 1770.
Perhaps, the Korngolds chose the name "Schott" in gratitude for the willingness and daring of the renowned publishing house to publish an opera by a young composer, known only in a small circle, at such an early stage.
Rodenbach's 1892 novel about love and death in a mysterious universe was a bestseller in Europe, but in Bruges this work by the French-speaking author did not go down well. Understandably, if your old, but very beautiful city is known as the "Venice of the North"...
