Die beste Bildung

The young Belgian widower Paul is psychologically trapped in the loving memories of his decesased wife Marie. A lock of her blond hair is his most prized possession, and he keeps a “Kirche des Gewesenen” (Church of the Past) at home in her honour. Owing to his inability to let go of the past, he can no longer demonstrate wholehearted affection for anybody, and becomes alienated from all the joys of life. One day he encounters the dancer Marietta, whose features remind him of Marie. Convinced that Marietta is resurrection of his love, Paul invites her home and tries to begin a relationship with her. This proves too much for him to handle, and the line between dream and reality is blurred as he has hallucinations of Marie giving him mixed messages as to whether he should begin a new relationship. In further halluciations he sees his friends abandon him because of his attempts to find a replacement for Marie in Marietta.

After spending a romantic night with Paul, Marietta believes that she has triumphed over her dead rival. But as a Pentecost procession moves in front of his house, Paul’s memories of Marie are renewed. He attempts to strangle Marietta to death using Marie’s lock of hair, proclaiming that Marietta would then become exactly like Marie. At this point, Paul snaps out of his illusions – and learns from his housemaid that Marietta would be returning to his place to pick up an umbrella she had left behind. He eventually musters up the courage to move beyond his past, and leaves the dead city in which he lives in order to start life anew.

This is the plot of Die Tote Stadt (The Dead City), the opera which I watched at the Staatstheater Nürnberg after my visit to the Tiergarten. It is considered the finest work of the Austrian composer Erich Korngold, one of the most famous composers of opera in the 20th century. Even so, because of my very limited knowledge of opera, I had never heard of it before I bought my ticket online for this performance. And having already watched Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier and Verdi’s Aida by the more prominent Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, I wondered whether this performance by the Staatstheater Nürnberg would pale by comparison.

This turned out to be very untrue, for Die Tote Stadt turned out to be superb. For one thing, instead of being stuck in a corner of one of the enormous balconies of the Bayerische Nationaltheater, where I could only see half of the stage, I could see the whole thing this time (though the tickets cost the same). I also could sit, which meant that I wouldn’t wake up with sore legs the next day.

But the more important part is that Die Tote Stadt is an extremely well written opera, with wonderful melodies which I found superior to those in Aida and on the same level as Der Rosenkavalier. In spite of their complex nature, and the fact that many of them only appear once in the opera, I can recall them quite well. The orchestra did a great job throughout the night, and despite the obvious difficulty of their roles, the actors all gave great performances. The main actor had the very challenging task of singing almost 1.5 hours straight in the first and second acts with an irregularly large number of high notes up to high A sharp. He did fall flat on some of the notes, but definitely redeemed himself by an extraordinarily touching, memorable scene towards the end, in which he makes up his mind to depart from his past. The actress who played both Marie and Marietta was also impressive, and I know that I will remember for a long time how her powerful voice, carried by the splendid accompaniment, resounded throughout the entire opera house in the surreal scene in which she (as Marie) appears to Paul in a dream.

Because the Staatstheater Nürnberg is considerably smaller than the Bayerische Nationaltheater, sets were not as grand. But the relatively intimate environment allowed the designers to do more with the stage, and I must say that the shifting of scenery and use of lighting is many times better than other operas and plays that I’ve watched, as you can probably tell from the images which I took from an online review.

I also liked the plot a lot because I have not seen anything like it. As Sara mentioned to me while we were having dinner at Vapiano before heading to the Bayerische Nationaltheater for Aida, many operas are variations on the same romantic story. While this does not reduce their magnificence, it definitely takes away the element of suspense, and do not offer much room for the viewer to contemplate. Die Tote Stadt, however, with its unusual choice of topic, narrates a very different form of love which left me deep in thought for quite a while. The plot itself, even if you don’t consider the (very beautiful) German libretto, is most remarkable, and greatly contributed to the creation of my favourite opera experience yet.

After spending €5 on a rather boring program booklet for Der Rosenkavalier (it was a remake of a 1972 production, so the program booklet was simply a reprint), I had told myself that I wouldn’t be spending my money on unnecessary items like this. But seeing that the Staatstheater Nürnberg charged half that price for the booklet of Die Tote Stadt, I decided to get a copy. And I’m very delighted that I did, because in addition to the typical cast list, composer introduction and plot overview, there were a few essays on the themes represented in the opera, one of which made some very interesting references to the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud. I have yet to read it in detail, but I think it promises a good hour of reading pleasure.

Finally, here are the lyrics from the very memorable scene I mentioned in the fifth paragraph. Paul sings these beautiful lines to declare to his friend Frank that he shall no longer dwell in the past. They express the triumph of life in an exceedingly eloquent manner, and are very worth getting to know even just as poetry alone. Note that the libretto was written by Erich Korngold himself, in conjunction with his father Julius (who used the pseudonym Paul Schott). And the translation is not bad, but that’s because I looked it up online rather than doing it myself:

O Freund, ich werde
sie nicht wiedersehen.
Ein Traum hat mir den Traum zerstört,
ein Traum der bittren Wirklichkeit,
den Traum der Phantasie.
Die Toten schicken solche Träume,
wenn wir zuviel mit ihnen
und in ihnen leben.
Wie weit soll unsere Trauer gehen,
wie weit darf sie es,
ohne uns zu entwurzeln?
Schmerzlicher Zwiespalt des Gefühls!

(Oh friend, I shall not
see her any more.
A dream has dashed my dream to earth,
A dream of crude realities has killed
the dream of phantasy and sweet deception.
Such dreams are sent us by our dead
If we live too much with
and in them
How far should we give way to grief,
How far dare we,
without disaster?
Harrowing conflict of the heart!)