Operaen abyme: The prodigious ritual of Korngold'sDie tote Stadt

Abstract

Abstract This essay frames Erich Wolfgang Korngold'sDie tote Stadt(1920) as amise-en-abymenarrative containing four nested realms of diegesis: (1) the opera's ‘real’ world, (2) a prolonged dream sequence, (3) a dance troupe's rehearsal of an opera within that dream, and (4) an expressly requested baritone song performed by a ‘Pierrot’ character in the midst of that dreamt rehearsal. I conceptualise the opera's dense meta-theatrics as a reflexive celebration (and also a didactic warning against the escapist pleasures) of sung spectacle. Excerpts from my interviews with Inga Levant – director of the 2001 Strasbourg production ofDie tote Stadt– are used to supplement my broader examination of the ways in which Korngold's reputation as a ‘problemless’ and ‘apolitical’ child prodigy has impacted critical, dramaturgical and hermeneutical orientations towards this opera since its earliest post-war performances.

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