About this Artist

• Biography

Editorial Reviews

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was one of the most extraordinary musical prodigies who ever lived, and his compositional maturity was legendary in the early twentieth century. When Korngold was 12, his teacher Alexander von Zemlinsky said that his pupil had nothing further to learn, and Richard Strauss and Puccini expressed amazement at music he had written at that age. Korngold went on to become one of Europe's most successful opera composers in the decade after the first World War, but by the time "Das Wunder der Heliane" was mounted in 1927, public tastes were shifting away from the lush, hyper-Romanticism of his music, and the premiere of Krenek's jazz-influenced "Jonny spielt auf," premiered about the same time, drew attention away from Korngold's opera, and it was soon forgotten.

It's unfortunate, because "Das Wunder der Heliane" is musically gorgeous. Korngold was a Wagnerian in his musical dramaturgy, and this opera creates a sustained level of red-hot emotional intensity that surpasses Wagner. Korngold was attuned to the new musical trends in Vienna, and while he was no modernist, in "Das Wunder der Heliane" he was moving toward a tonal flexibility that made it clear this was an opera of its time and not a nostalgic throwback. Korngold wrote gratefully for the voice, and the roles created require singers capable of Wagnerian endurance. His orchestration is brilliant, and the music vividly moves the drama forward with memorably grand Romantic gestures. One thing that sets it apart from rehashed Romantic music is that it is always interesting, full of compositional inventiveness, contrapuntal complexity, and unpredictable turns. The opera's introduction, which includes a heavenly chorus singing "Selig sind die Liebenden," echoing the first movement of Brahms' "German Requiem," is one of the loveliest openings in the operatic literature. The heavily allegorical libretto strains credulity, but aside from some impossible scenic requirements that are absolutely essential to the plot, such as extended nudity, having the dead hero lie motionless, center stage, for an hour before his last-minute resurrection, and the physical ascension of the lovers in the opera's apotheosis, it's not much harder to take than that of some highly popular operas.

The opera receives a glowing performance by the RSO Berlin and the Berliner Rundfunkchor, fervently led by John Mauceri, and Decca has assembled an outstanding cast of soloists. Soprano Anna Tomowa-Sintow is both sweet-voiced and powerful as Heliane, a role that requires Herculean endurance on-stage. Hartmut Welker brings a dark, rich voice to the dramatically complex role of the evil Ruler, and tenor John David de Haan is almost always effective in projecting the Stranger's demanding part. In some wonderful luxury casting, bass René Pape as the Jailer and tenor Nicolai Gedda as the Blind Judge shine in relatively small roles. Decca's sound is clean and spacious, but the singers are occasionally miked unevenly, a problem that seems to affect de Haan the most. Stephen Eddins, All Music Guide

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