Rating: 
Summary: Good singing, beautiful music, odd production
Review: The production designer seemed to think the primary focus should be on his talents rather than the actors or composer. Angela Denoke was wonderful, Toesten Kerl efective as the ill fated hero. They had to do battle with the sets and costumes. It was difficult to understand Korngold's opera because of the poor production.
Rating:
Summary: Good singing, beautiful music, odd production
Review: The production designer seemed to think the primary focus should be on his talents rather than the actors or composer. Angela Denoke was wonderful, Toesten Kerl efective as the ill fated hero. They had to do battle with the sets and costumes. It was difficult to understand Korngold's opera because of the poor production.
Rating: 
Summary: Almost ... but not quite
Review: This is a magnificent opera. Let us not forget how successful it once was. According to performance statistics, of all the operas first performed between the 2 World Wars this opera was - during that period - the most performed; its rivals included several Strauss operas, the later operas of Janacek, Turandot, Oedipus Rex,Wozzeck, L'Enfant et les Sortileges and others which are now part of the standard repertoire. There are many IFS: if the Nazis hadn't banned its performences; if the label of Film Composer hadn't been hung around Korngold's neck; if the once fashionable cul-de-sac of serialism had exerted less influence in the 20 years post World War 2 .... would Die tote Stadt have retained its popularity? If you are prepared to travel around Europe, then these days it's once again possible to enjoy different productions of the opera most years. The promised new production at Salzburg may indeed set the seal on the opera's rehabilitation and, with luck, that too might receive a video recording.
Is the Opera de Rhin production one which reveals the full measure of the work? The answer must be .... partially, but not completely. For that, you would have to go to, say, the Stockholm production or the Gotz Friedrich production which toured several European cities. Musically, it's excellent. Torsten Kerl (as Paul) and Angela Denoke (as Marie/Marietta) make the most of their very taxing roles and the conducting of Jan Latham-Koenig is first rate. It is the production which is problematic. The end of the opera can be interpreted positively - showing Paul coming out of his obsession with his dead wife; or negatively - showing the obsession overwhelming him. In this production there seems little progression, either upwards or downwards - he is totally obsessed from beginning to end.
As much of the opera is a dream sequence, it is an invitation for producers to go over the top and for me that part of the production does work. The end of the opera, where Paul seems driven to madness and suicide could work even better if the first half hour of the opera gave more of a contrast. It's perhaps an old-fashioned sentiment, but I don't feel that a bombed-out church works as a set for a middle-class home in Bruges. The production's idea that Paul keeps not just mementos of his dead wife but her actual skeleton is interesting and would be even creepier in a more normal setting.
Neverthless, despite the faults, it's still fascinating.
Rating: 
Summary: Viewer from Cabbage Patch
Review: This is a minor opera by a minor composer. It isn't even listed in Kobbe and is rarely performed. But it is filled with exquisite music and vocals and has a macabre fascination. Being a hick from the sticks, my first encounter with it was the movie Aria which uses Marietta's Lied in one of the vignettes as the audio to accompany a video of the city of Bruges and actress and model Elizabeth Hurley disrobing. Hearing the show stopper from Korngold's masterpiece almost made me forget about Liz.Most operas have simple plots. Girl meets boy, boys, a regiment and romantic polygons are formed. Throw in war, inquisition, sorcery, alchemy, women trying to find their shadow, etc. and you've got your basic opera plot. But this opera, or at least this production of it, left me feeling like ones of the apes in Stanley Kubrick's movie 2001 contemplating the obelisk. Frankly, I have no clue as to what is going on. But the enigma adds to the allure and, besides, if the folks responsible for it wanted me to understand it they would have made it understandable. A minor puzzle is when Marietta begins her big number a teenage boy in semiformal attire emerges from a door in the deserted mausoleum and bachelor pad to accompany her on a piano. Although I love this opera, this performance of it, and this DVD, my enjoyment would have been enhanced if the necrophilia and fetish aspects had been toned down. In an opera such as Salome it's necessary to have a severed head prominently displayed. But is it really necessary to have as the main stage prop in Die Tote Stadt the desiccated corpse of the departed Marie which looks like Norman Bates' mother from Alfred Hitchcock's movie Psycho? Do we really need to see Paul grabbing dolls and cadavers with the zest of a python latching onto a bunny rabbit? More could and should have been left to the imagination. If you've only heard of Korngold as the composer of music for some great and not so great Hollywood movies, you need to get this. Your ears are in for a treat. But you may need a blinder and a barf bag for the gruesome parts.
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