Boston Symphony Brings Lush, Rarely Heard Korngold Opera to the Concert Stage

At face value, the subject of grief seems an odd subject for the 23-year-old Korngold, a child prodigy writing his first full-length opera. The opera's source is a cult Symbolist novel by the Flemish author Georges Rodenbach that was adapted into a play by Siegfried Trebitschthat, who was a friend to Julius Korngold, Erich's father and a leading Viennese music critic. Trebitschthat suggested that that the Korngolds turn his play into an opera, and the young composer seized the opportunity, working with his father (under the pseudonym of Paul Schlott) to write the libretto. His finished opera was something of a sensation, no doubt in part due to then-present collective trauma brought on by the dual catastrophes of the First World War and the flu epidemic that crippled the world when the opera was at the height of its popularity. Grief was in the air, and Korngold captured it.

But "Die Tote Stadt's" popularity was short-lived. By the end of the 1920s, Korngold's lush style was falling our of favor as classical music embraced Modernism with Twelve-tone music and jazz became a force. Moreover, being Jewish, Korngold found his music banned by the Nazis. He fled to America, settling in Hollywood, where he found lucrative work writing film scores. At the time, sound films were less than 10 years old and Korngold proved instrumental in shaping what was to be the orchestral style of film music that continued throughout the century and reached its apex in the scores of John Williams. Korngold's name became synonymous with swashbuckling epics starring Errol Flynn ("Captain Blood," "The Sea Hawk," and "The Adventures of Robin Hood," for which he won one of his two Oscars. The other was for "Anthony Adverse.")