Tickets for “Die tote Stadt” are now available.

Tickets for “Die tote Stadt” are now available.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was a child prodigy. At the age of 5 he played melodies from “Don Giovanni” and when he was 10 he composed his own tunes. During his teenage years his compositions were conducted and performed on famous European stages by the most outstanding conductors of the time. “Die tote Stadt” was created in 1920, when Korngold was only 20, and its premieres took place in the same year both in Hamburg and Cologne. The opera’s libretto was based on the novel "Bruges-la-Morte” (1892) of Belgian symbolist Georges Rodenbach, which was part of the protest against the intention of transforming Flanders city – Bruges, an architectural gem, into a modern harbour. It was not, however, the night setting of endangered Bruges that made the work successful (until 1924 it was played in Vienna, New York, Prague, Munich and Berlin) but its intriguing plot and ecstatic music. The world of the dead merges with the world of the living, as the characters of Paul and Marie/Marietta wander between the dream reality and the real world. In pre-war Poland, as a result of the European successes of Korngold’s work, the premiere of the opera entitled “Zamarły gród” (“Lifeless City”) took place in Lviv in 1928. In the 1930s, the composer moved to the United States of America and commenced his professional involvement with Hollywood studios. Korngold shaped the American style of film music. He was a four-time Oscar nominee and a two-time winner of the award. Composed by Krongold, who merges the opera with the cinema in his work, “Die tote Stadt” seems to be a dream topic for the directorial output of Mariusz Treliński.

Directed by: Mariusz Treliński

Set Design: Boris Kudlička

Teatr Wielki – National Opera Orchestra conducted by Finnegan Downie Dear

Cast (soloists):

Paul – Jacek Laszczkowski

Marie/Marietta – Ewa Vesin

Frank/Pierrot – Tomasz Rak

Fritz – Szymon Mechliński

Brigitta – Bernadetta Grabias

Juliette – Maria Stasiak

Lucienne – Elżbieta Wróblewska

Gaston/Victorin – Pavlo Tolstoy

Graf Albert – Paweł Wunder

Ticket prices: 60zl; 80zl; 120zl; 180zl;

Tickets are available at the CMC box office.