Audiences may be wary of something they never heard -- or, in many cases, never even heard of — but there is no need for fear in the case
Composer Erich Korngold’s 1920 “Die tote Stadt” is not an unfamiliar title to opera regulars, though the piece is sparingly performed by American companies. It is hard to say why, really; it is an easy work to listen to and full of the high-level drama that fans of the art form crave.
Audiences may be wary of something they never heard — or, in many cases, never even heard of — but there is no need for fear in the case. Korngold employs well his famous melodic style, a talent he used to spend a good portion of his time writing scores for Hollywood movies as his career progressed. He created the music for early, international classics, like 1935’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and 1938’s “The Adventures of Robin Hood.
Opera Colorado, which is also using the translated title of “The Dead City,” is giving the work the full treatment. Like a lot of opera companies, it often borrows sets, costumes and even singers and directors from other versions of a title that were made by peer companies across the country. The trading of used props is a big part of the opera business.
Paul, the character at the center of the opera, is reimagined as a painter for this production of Opera Colorado’s “Die Tote Stadt.” “It has that theatrical thriller part to it,” said Rader-Shieber. But it is also a very human story of overcoming loss, of “a brain doing stuff to try to figure itself out,” as he puts it.
The creative duo here filled in some gaps. They used Paul’s complex preoccupation with Marie’s portrait to declare him an artist himself. They imagine he painted that portrait and many others, and they turn the setting into an artist’s studio and fill it with multiple pictures of Marie.
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