Korngold's Die tote Stadt

Since the death of his wife Marie, Paul has been leading the life of a recluse, spending his days in a trance-like state and remembering past love.

He has converted his apartment into a ‘church of the departed’, retaining a portrait of Marie and keeping her plait of hair in a glass shrine.

At the start of the opera, Paul’s friend Frank pays him a visit, and Paul ecstatically tells him that he has met a woman in Bruges who reminds him of his dead wife.

Her glance, her hair, her smile, her voice have all led him to believe that he has rediscovered his dead
love in the dreary town.

Paul’s dream of Marie returning to him seems to be becoming reality, as the beautiful stranger has promised to pay him a visit.

Paul sends his housekeeper, Brigitta, out to fetch fresh roses with which to decorate his shrine.

Frank cautions his friend: it would be dangerous to attempt to turn a living woman into a dead loved one’s effigy.

The stranger arrives at Paul’s apartment and begins to mock the morbid way in which he leads his life.

Paul is astounded by her resemblance to Marie, and attempts to fuse dream with reality by asking her to wear his dead wife’s shawl.

The similarity makes him cry out ‘Marie!’. Aghast, the visitor retorts that her name is Marietta. Paul hands her a lute, and they sing a sentimental old song together.

Sounds of a quite different kind can be heard from outside: Marietta’s friends, a troupe of actors, have arrived to take her to a rehearsal at the theatre.

She explains that she is a dancer on tour in Bruges.

Marietta suddenly notices her resemblance to Marie’s portrait and suspects that Paul is not really interested in her for her own sake. She leaves for her rehearsal.

Overwhelmed, Paul begins to fantasize that Marie is returning from the dead.

Marie appears to him in a vision, reminding him that their love lives on through the past, present and future.

When Marie abruptly turns into Marietta in Paul’s vision, his thoughts about both women begin to overlap disturbingly.

The outline of the city, Bruges, that Paul so strongly associates with Marie, begins to blur before his eyes.

He imagines that he can see his housekeeper Brigitta on her way to becoming a nun, preferring a life of prayer to serving a sinful master.

She tells him that she will pray for his soul. Paul’s friend Frank then appears in the guise of a rival for Marietta’s favours and he and Paul fight.

Marietta’s friends approach. Amid much laughter and song, they mock Paul’s cult of the dead.

When Marietta finally appears, a serenade filled with longing for lost happiness awakens further memories for Paul.

Marietta, however, insists on catching up with that morning’s missed rehearsal.

On a whim, the rehearsal turns into a satirical resurrection scene in which Marietta cruelly plays the part of a woman who, after returning from the dead, begins to dance erotically.

The troupe disappear and Paul confesses to Marietta that he loved her merely for the sake of a dead woman.

Marietta seductively declares that she is ready to fight Marie’s ghost.

After a night of rapture with Paul, Marietta confronts Marie’s portrait, convinced that she has finally triumphed over her dead rival.

Outside, the people of Bruges are gathering for a religious procession.

Marietta wants to watch the spectacle from the window, but Paul is worried about his reputation.

Marietta indignantly turns away. Paul, however, is drawn towards the intense scene and experiences an outburst of religious ecstasy.

Marietta mocks his piety: Paul has succumbed to her, but is now indulging a hypocritical faith.

She asks why he made love to her, if now he is only interested in praising his dead wife’s purity.

Marietta
provokes Paul by taking Marie’s plait of hair from its glass case and placing it round her own neck.

She intends to dance for Paul and seduce him again.

Infuriated, Paul strangles the dancer with his most precious keepsake, Marie’s golden hair.

Now Marietta fully resembles Marie.