“My yearning, my obsession”

Canadian director Robert Carsen is acclaimed for his international productions as well as stagings on home turf. His 1997 Metropolitan Opera production of Eugene Onegin opened the 18/19 Canadian Opera Company season. This autumn he turned his attention to Die tote Stadt for Komische Oper Berlin (KOB), a work with a fascinating history and an enthusiastic renaissance.

The 1920 opera by Erich Wolfgang Korngold enjoyed immense popularity in its time, though it was later banned by the National Socialists in Germany for its Jewish origins. Based on the novel by Belgian symbolist author Georges Rodenbach, it features a libretto by the then 22-year-old Korngold and his father under the name of “Paul Schott.” The spectre of WWI casts long shadows across both the novel and the opera, as does the creative, , , but it’s Korngold’s language—he has a way of writing which is just incredible.”