Die tote Stadt - Schedule, Program & Tickets

Opera in three pictures

Freely adapted from Georges Rodenbach's novel Bruges-la-Morte
Libretto by Paul Schott

In German with German and English surtitles

A sensational success of the 20th century
Die tote Stadt made Erich Wolfgang Korngold the most frequently performed opera composer in Germany in the 1920s alongside Richard Strauss. With Klaus Florian Vogt and Vida Miknevičiūtė in the leading roles, director David Bösch impressively tells the story of a journey into the self in which dream and reality become blurred. Korngold's music brings the psychological drama to full fruition; his compositional style is unmistakably narrative and emotional.

Lonely and withdrawn, the grieving widower Paul lives in the city of Bruges after the death of his wife Marie and practises a strange death cult around the deceased. But an encounter with the dancer Marietta turns his life upside down: the young woman becomes a mirror of his longings, onto which he projects the "return" of his deceased wife. It is only when he wakes up from a nightmare in which Paul commits a bloody deed that he arrives in reality. Can he find his way to a life free of psychological burdens?

Subject to change without notice.