With the world premiere of his one-act opera, VIOLANTA, the 18-year-old Erich Wolfgang Korngold shifted overnight from child prodigy to one of the leading opera composers of his generation. For VIOLANTA not only heralded the arrival of a young maestro who was as independent as he was variegated in his musical palette, who had an unerring feel for how to render his vision on stage, and who could write melodies that were both expressive and catchy to boot; the 75-minute work to a libretto by Hans Müller, later to be known for co-writing THE WHITE HORSE INN, also served notice that Korngold had caught a contemporary Viennese mood that encapsulated Art Nouveau, psychoanalysis and an end-of-days atmosphere, a quintessence framed by Freud, Klimt and Schnitzler – all mirrored perfectly in the storyline: Violanta, the wife of Venice’s governor, plots during Carnival to avenge, through assassination, her sister, who committed suicide after being seduced by Prince Alfonso. When the moment comes, however, she acknowledges her true motive: to snuff out her own desire to abandon herself to passion. She sacrifices herself to free herself from “lust and guilt”.

At the Deutsche Oper Berlin, which hosted a much-discussed revival of THE MIRACLE OF HELIANE (likewise to a text by Hans Müller), this new production of VIOLANTA is the result of a collaboration between General Music Director Sir Donald Runnicles and the director David Hermann. The pair have already worked on two other new productions: THE MAKROPULOS AFFAIR and FIDELIO.

Spotlight
Laura Wilde’s first contact with the music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold coincided with the start of her career. In 2018 she got the chance to sing the main role in THE RING OF POLYKRATES at the Dallas Opera, the very work that shared a world-premiere tandem with VIOLANTA in 1916. Since then the young soprano from South Dakota has come on in leaps and bounds, appearing at venues such as the Metropolitan Opera, the Staatstheater Stuttgart and the English National Opera. With a repertoire ranging from Mozart to Britten, she has tilted towards German works, taking roles that include Wagner’s Sieglinde and Strauss’s Salome. Now she takes on Violanta, which may well make her the first singer to have featured in both of Korngold’s debut works as a composer of opera.

Presented by radio 3 from rbb and taz.

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