The title of Korngold’s opera Die tote Stadt – “The Dead City” – is an evocative and intriguing one. It was adapted from the novel Bruges-la-morte (1892) by the Belgian symbolist writer Georges Rodenbach, in which the city Bruges plays an integral part. Why is Bruges a dead city? Prosperous in the 12th to 15th centuries, the city gradually fell into decline when its channel to the sea began to silt and the canals became stagnant. In Rodenbach’s novel, the protagonist Hugues (“Paul” in Korngold’s opera), who cannot get over the loss of his beloved wife, identifies himself with the dead city, until one day he meets by a canal a lookalike to his wife, with whom he rapidly becomes infatuated. In Korngold’s opera, the voice of Paul’s dead wife Marie and her lookalike Marietta, a dancer, are sung by the same soprano, a dramatically effective ploy.
Bruges forms an important backdrop in Kasper Holten’s imaginative production of this work for the Finnish National Opera, originally seen in 2010 and revived in November (it also transfers to Tokyo’s New National Theatre next March). Essentially in a modern setting, it is ingenious both conceptually and visually, following closely Paul’s psychological state from his unhealthy obsession with his dead wife to finally letting her go. Holten’s main idea is to have the dead wife Marie played on stage by an actress, a phantom that can only be seen by Paul. In the wrong hands this could become tiresome, but in this production Marie is played so subtly and touchingly by the well-known Finnish actress Kirsti Valve that it feels absolutely natural to have her on stage. She reacts to everything that happens and her presence is especially effective when Marietta, in Act III Scene I, realising that there are three people in this relationship, confronts Marie in person (usually it would be sung to Marie’s portrait).
The set design by Es Devlin is impressive too – it is a single set consisting of a huge but claustrophobic room which is a shrine dedicated to the memory of Marie. Both side-walls are dominated by shelves up to the ceiling filled with her portraits and countless items of memorabilia. Apart from a big bed in the middle of the stage, the floor is also full of memories of her – letters, portraits, theatre tickets and the all-important braid of her golden hair, all in boxes. At the back is a large blind, which is closed at the beginning but gradually opens to let the light in, and in Act II it opens up showing an angled, panoramic view of Bruges. The lighting by Wolfgang Goebbel is especially effective – the room is variously lit gold (Act I), blue (Act II), red (Act III) and white (last scene of Act III),signaling the change in Paul’s emotional state. As the opera unfolds, one feels that the city – the outside world symbolized by Marietta – gradually invades Paul’s inner world.
Where the opera deviates from the novel is the ending: in Rodenbach, Paul actually kills Marietta when she demands too much from Paul and commits the sacrilege of touching Marie’s hair, but in Korngold’s opera, this all turns out to be part of a dream and finally Paul is liberated from Marie’s ghost. The libretto was jointly written by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (who was still only in his early twenties) and his father Julius under the pseudonym of Paul Schott. Having recently read the original novel, I found the effectiveness of their adaptation impressive (changing the chronology, creating new characters such as Paul’s friend Frank, incorporating a theatrical scene in Act II, etc.), which makes more dramatic sense and brings satisfying closure.