Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s 1920 opera, Die tote Stadt (“The Dead City”) is “a psychological drama about grief, obsession, and acceptance.” (English National Opera)
The opera’s synopsis is nearly identical to the plot of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film, Vertigo. Haunted by the memory of his late wife, Paul obsessively pursues a dancer who closely resembles her. Amid Paul’s psychological descent, reality blurs with hallucination. He believes that he has strangled the dancer, Marietta, with a lock of his wife’s hair, declaring “Now she is exactly like Marie.”
Shaken, Paul wakes to realize that it has been a dream. He must let go of his “temple of memories.” The opera’s poignant final scene depicts Paul’s release from obsession. The majestic theme of Glück, das mir verblieb (Marietta’s Lied) returns. Now, it accompanies the words, O Freund, ich werde sie nicht wiedersehen (“Oh friend, I will not see her again”).
A moment of shimmering transcendence arrives with the final chord, which extends eight octaves from the lowest to highest register of the orchestra. This performance features German tenor Torsten Kerl with conductor Lawrence Foster and the Orchestra of the German Opera Berlin.