Organization

Admin

Bavarian State Opera

Orchestra

Bavarian State Orchestra

Conductor

Lothar Koenigs

Stage director

Stage director (+1)

Simon Stone

Set designer

Set designer (+1)

Ralph Myers

Costume designer

Costume designer (+1)

Mel Page

Dramaturge

Dramaturge (+1)

Lukas Leipfinger

Tenor

Klaus Florian Vogt

Paul

Soprano (+2)

Vida Mikneviciute

Marietta

Baritone (+4)

Sean Michael Plumb

Frank

Fritz

Mirjam Mesak

Juliette

Mezzo-soprano (+2)

Xenia Puskarz Thomas

Lucienne

Tenor (+2)

Liam Bonthrone

Gaston

Victorin

Miles Mykkanen

Count Albert

Mezzo-soprano (+3)

Jennifer Johnston

Brigitta

Lighting designer

Roland Edrich

Marie

Chorusmaster

Chorusmaster (+1)

Christoph Heil

Nationaltheater Munich

Chorus

Bayerische Staatsoper Chorus

Bayerische Staatsoper Children Chorus

The boundary between dream and reality increasingly dissolves when Paul, who is mourning his late wife Marie, meets the dancer Marietta. Due to her external resemblance to Marie, Marietta becomes a projection surface for Paul's erotic desires, whose mourning has cult-like characteristics: the carefully preserved strand of hair of the deceased is kept like a relic. After a nerve-racking, cathartic “vision,” Paul is finally grounded in reality. He can leave the city of Bruges as the place for his death cult. The original title of the work “Triumph of Life” is indicative of the protagonist’s personal development.
A few weeks before the immensely successful premiere of Die tote Stadt, none other than Giacomo Puccini described the then 23-year-old Erich Wolfgang Korngold as “the strongest hope of new German music”. Because of their melodic urgency, arias such as “Glück, das mir verblichen” and “Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen” are part of the concert repertoire of numerous opera singers and radiate far beyond the popularity of the Dead City .

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