The Biennial Festival of Music presents a first for Australia -an exceptional performance of Erich Korngold’s operatic masterpiece Die tote Stadt (The Dead City) sung in concert. Korngold’s extraordinary career began in Vienna, but in 1937 he went to Hollywood, where he showed his versatility by writing superb cinema music, winning Oscars for his scores for Robin Hood and Anthony Adverse.
Die tote Stadt, a lush sensuous opera set in 19th century Bruges, was written when Korngold was only twenty. In it, bitter reality blends with romantic fantasy, as a man experiences a crisis of conscience when he becomes involved in a love triangle with an old friend and a dancer who is the image of his own dead wife.
Among the outstanding soloists are New Zealand tenor Keith Lewis, a regular performer on the stages of the world’s leading opera houses including Covent Garden, Berlin Staatsoper and the Paris Opera; American Melanie Helton, making her Australian debut; and leading Australian baritone Michael Lewis. The performance is majestically conducted by American conductor George Manahan, recently named as Music Director of the famed New York City Opera.