American heldentenor Stephen Gould has died. Since 2004, he appeared at Bayreuth nearly 100 times. Gould, 61, announced his retirement from singing only last month. Later, he revealed on social media that he had been diagnosed with bile-duct cancer, “with complications,” and that there would be no cure. He took the opportunity to express his gratitude to Bayreuth and for all the fond memories. He faced his disease clear-eyed and went out with real class.
As a young singer, Gould auditioned for a national tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of Opera” – as a joke, he said – and he wound up singing in the show for close to eight years!
I recall this ballsy Bayreuth production of “Tannhäuser,” directed by Tobias Kratzer, from 2019, featuring a dwarf, a drag queen, and Gould in clown make-up. Not sure it’s exactly what Wagner had in mind, but I know you will love it. Sorry, no subtitles. You’ll just have to sprechen sie Deutsch.
One of classical music’s most astonishing composer prodigies – sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus, as it were – Erich Wolfgang Korngold was the toast of Vienna. His opera “Die tote Stadt” was probably his greatest success, receiving double-premieres in Hamburg and Cologne. It became one of the most popular operas by a living composer during the 1920s.
With the rise of the Nazis, Korngold and his family found refuge in Hollywood, where he wrote film scores for such classics as “Captain Blood” (1935), “The Prince and the Pauper” (1937), “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938), “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” (1939), “The Sea Hawk” (1940), and “Kings Row” (1942).
Even as a boy, Korngold had amazed audiences with such works as the ballet-pantomime “Der Schneemann,” or “The Snowman,” composed at the tender age of 11 and first performed at the Vienna Court Opera in the presence of Emperor Franz Josef. His Piano Trio was composed at 13 and given its premiere by Artur Schnabel and members of the Vienna Philharmonic. The Sinfonietta, a symphony-in-all-but-name, was composed at 15 and first conducted by Felix Weingartner, while Korngold shared a box with an admiring (and, by his own admission, somewhat intimidated) Richard Strauss.
With the premiere of his opera “Die tote Stadt,” or “The Dead City,” in 1920, at age 23, Korngold’s reputation seemed assured. He wrote a piano concerto for Paul Wittgenstein, undertook a revival of the operettas of Johann Strauss II, and was publicly honored by the president of Austria.
However, the trajectory of his career took an unexpected turn with the ascendancy of Hitler. To escape the creep of fascism, Korngold embarked on a second career, settling in Hollywood to write film scores for Warner Brothers.
The first of these was composed at the invitation of famed impresario Max Reinhardt, with whom Korngold had collaborated on the Strauss revivals. Reinhardt was in the process of adapting Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for the big screen, and he enlisted Korngold to rework Felix Mendelssohn’s famous incidental music.
In true Korngoldian fashion, the composer went well beyond what was expected, weaving in passages from Mendelssohn’s symphonies and “Songs Without Words,” writing his own connective material, and sprinkling the whole with fairy dust.
Korngold’s work on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1935) led to an exclusive contract at Warner’s, where the composer revolutionized the language of film music, applying the kind of opulence, pageantry and romance characteristic of his operas to silver screen historical dramas and swashbucklers.
The result was kind of a pop cultural immortality, but to the detriment of his reputation as a serious composer. The center of European musical culture was off-limits, indeed severely limited by Nazi strictures, and the language of musical modernism, as exemplified by the output of his contemporary and compatriot Arnold Schoenberg, made Korngold seem positively old-fashioned. It would be decades before his reputation would recover, and unfortunately by then he was long dead.
I feel like I was in on the ground floor of the Korngold revival, snapping up everything available, though a mere fraction of his output, shortly after it appeared on LP during the 1970s. Then came a veritable Korngold bumper crop during the compact disc era, especially in 1990s. Since then, we’ve been blessed especially with multiple recordings of the Violin Concerto, now in the repertoire of practically every major violinist.
It’s been very exciting for me, personally, to live through the comeback of one of my favorite composers, and one who has been so important to me for most of my existence. Well before I knew anything about music, my best friend and I used to “sing” the music from “Robin Hood,” after the film’s television broadcasts, while executing curtain rod duels around the house.
With gratitude to Erich Wolfgang Korngold on his birthday. May I obey all your commands with equal pleasure, sire!
One of classical music’s most astonishing composer prodigies – springing fully formed from the head of Zeus, as it were – Erich Wolfgang Korngold became the toast of Vienna. His opera “Die tote Stadt” was probably his greatest success, receiving double-premieres in Hamburg and Cologne. It became one of the most popular operas by a living composer during the 1920s.
With the rise of the Nazis, Korngold and his family found refuge in Hollywood, where he wrote film scores for Warner Brothers, including those for some of my personal favorites: “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” (1938) “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” (1939), “The Sea Hawk” (1940), and “Kings Row” (1942).
Also during this period, he composed a “Passover Psalm,” on a commission from Rabbi Jacob Sonderling, founder of Fairfax Temple in Los Angeles. While ethnically Jewish, Korngold was not a particularly religious man. His only other sacred work, “Prayer,” was also composed for Sonderling.
Korngold swore he would produce no new concert music until Hitler was removed from power. He made those two exceptions for Fairfax Temple. Here is Korngold’s “Passover Psalm” (1941):
One hundred years ago today, Erich Wolfgang Korngold achieved his greatest operatic success at the age of 23, with the double-premiere, in Cologne and Hamburg, of “Die tote Stadt” (“The Dead City”). One of music’s most astounding child prodigies, Korngold had been the talk of Vienna since the age of 11, when his ballet-pantomime “Der Schneemann” (“The Snowman”) was first performed at the Vienna Court Opera. By then, Gustav Mahler had already declared him a genius. Richard Strauss would express terror at the boy’s frightening precocity.
Undoubtedly, Korngold is much better known to movie-lovers for his contributions to the Golden Age of Hollywood, including his classic scores for the swashbucklers of Errol Flynn (“Captain Blood,” “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” and “The Sea Hawk,” among them). Sadly, fascism and war gutted the Vienna of Korngold’s youth, and avant-garde arbiters and ideologues ensured that his brand of tonal, melodic music would be pushed out of the concert halls for decades
Interestingly, the opera’s scenario bears a striking resemblance to that of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” with an overwrought protagonist falling for a free spirit, who happens to be the spitting image of his dead wife. The dysfunctional relationship quickly spirals out of control.
For 18 years after its debut, “Die tote Stadt” was the most frequently performed opera in Vienna. Then for half a century, it fell virtually silent. Performances were rare, but in recent decades, once more, it’s begun to pick up steam. “The Dead City” lives again, in the affections of opera companies and their audiences, though too many modern productions clash with the essentially Romantic nature of its music. There are psychological depths to be plumbed, for sure, but the imagery should never be aesthetically unpleasant.
I’ve been privileged to see “Die tote Stadt” twice on stage, but of course I’ve listened to it many more times on recordings. It is a melancholy masterpiece by one of my favorite composers. It’s only a pity he didn’t live to enjoy the fruits of its belatedly revived fortunes.
Carol Neblett and René Kollo perform the opera’s famous duet, “Glück, das mir verblieb” (“Joy, that near to me remained”), commonly presented in recital as “Marietta’s Lute Song” (actually just the first five minutes of this video):
I am so excited to have just gotten off the phone with Leon Botstein. Botstein, who is president of Bard College, is also co-artistic director of the Bard Music Festival, held each summer on the campus of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. This year, the festival’s focus will be on “Korngold and His World.”
Tune in this afternoon for some of Dr. Botstein’s insights into Korngold the composer, as we talk just a bit about the festival, which will take place this year over two weekends: August 9-11 and August 16-18.
Then watch this space for news of upcoming installments of “Picture Perfect” and “The Lost Chord,” which will include more of Botstein’s comments on Korngold’s significance as a composer for opera house, concert hall, and film.
The Bard Music Festival will encompass a veritable cornucopia of Korngold, including the composer’s two greatest operas – a concert performance of “Die tote Stadt,” which will round out the festival, on August 18, and a fully-staged production of “Das Wunder der Heliane,” which will act as a kind of preamble to the festival proper, from July 26 to August 4. Leon Botstein will conduct. As has been the case with so much music performed at Bard, “Heliane” is an opera that has never before received a staging in the United States.
The festival will shine light on all aspects of Korngold’s art, by way of his own work for different media (including a performance, with film, of selections from “The Adventures of Robin Hood”), and music by his contemporaries, those he influenced and those who were influenced by him.
You can find at more about “Das Wunder der Heliane” and the Bard Music Festival by visiting fishercenter.bard.edu.
Then tune in today, in the 4:00 hour EDT, to hear portions of my conversation with Dr. Botstein – with more to come on future episodes of “Picture Perfect” and “The Lost Chord” – on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College
