This will likely be my last Shakespeare post for a while – the 500th anniversary of the Bard’s birth falls in 2064 – so enjoy it. We wrap up our month-long commemoration of the quadricentennial of Shakespeare’s death, on April 23, 1616, by revisiting “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Erich Wolfgang Korngold went from being one of Europe’s great musical prodigies – his works admired by Mahler, Strauss and Puccini, and performed by Schnabel, Weingartner and Klemperer – to becoming one of Hollywood’s transformative film composers. He is a link from Old World opulence to New World fantasy, his music gracing a number of Warner Brothers’ greatest historical adventures. He was also an opera composer. In fact, his opera “Die tote Stadt” was the runaway hit of 1920.
It was at the invitation of theatrical impresario Max Reinhardt that Korngold came to Hollywood in 1934 for a big screen adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The film starred James Cagney, Dick Powell and Olivia de Havilland, in her silver screen debut, with Mickey Rooney an irrepressible Puck.
For the project, Korngold adapted the famous incidental music of Felix Mendelssohn, interweaving material from Mendelssohn’s symphonies and orchestrating some of the “Songs without Words.” Yet the music bears Korngold’s unmistakable stamp, as you’ll hear in the opening fanfare and chorus, crafted from raw material found in the “Scottish Symphony” and marked by plenty of Korngoldian pageantry and swagger.
The composer drew on his theatrical experience, even conducting the actors as they spoke their dialogue in order to get the tempos he desired.
Korngold’s work on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” led to further offers from Warner Brothers, under terms he couldn’t refuse. In the meantime, the Nazis rolled into Austria, effectively sealing off his return to Europe. Vienna’s loss was Hollywood’s gain. Korngold would become the crown jewel of Warners’ music department. His excellence was recognized with two Academy Awards, for “Anthony Adverse,” in 1936, and “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” in 1938.
I hope you’ll join me, over hill, over dale, for Korngold’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.
#Shakespeare400
