Erich Wolfgang Korngold was a child prodigy who wrote VIOLANTA at the tender age of 17. The opera tells a story of despairing love and a web of violence, lust and guilt. One might question his ability to explore such themes when he himself had not yet lived, but Korngold was a gifted storyteller. People and destinies fascinated him and he was versed in psychology, a fact that set him apart from many composers of his age, who penned their sonatas and symphonies cut off from the outside world.

Korngold was also a supreme writer of orchestral music. His unique, sensuous soundscapes, heady and suggestive, are informed by Strauss, Wagner, Puccini and also Impressionist artists. His talent brought him success as a composer of soundtracks in Hollywood, where he won two Oscars. Some musicologists disparaged his operas for that reason, as they bore similarities to film scores. To my mind that is very unfair, not least because Korngold was not in America by choice. As a Jew, he was forced by the Nazis to emigrate and had to find a new home and a new path for his genius.

Back in Europe after the war, he was unable to reconnect – all the more reason to welcome the rediscovery of his works, which now have their rightful place in the history of classical music. And the Deutsche Oper Berlin has had its part in his ‘comeback’, impressing critics and audiences alike with works such as THE DEAD CITY and THE MIRACLE OF HELIANE.

VIOLANTA is my contribution to the mosaic of revived Korngold material. The psychology of the main protagonist lies at the core of my production. During the Venice carnival Violanta is intent on avenging the suicide of her sister, who had been seduced by Prince Alfonso. In the moment of confrontation Violanta is forced to admit to herself that she desires Alfonso herself. In his one-act work Korngold takes a deep dive into the character of his heroine, both dramaturgically and musically, tracing an arc from the opera’s enigmatic beginning to the stirring music of the final scene.

The start of the opera finds Violanta dumb from the shock of her sister’s death. As she comes to regret the life she leads with her emotionally remote husband, she gradually opens up and becomes more centred. For me, it’s a tale of emancipation – despite the tragic outcome, which we are interpreting quite differently. As a way of exploring Violanta’s mute state further, I’m planning to add a prologue to the 75-minute one-acter: a delicate work by John Dowland and also Alban Berg’s Opus 6, No. 1. I’m posing the question: »How do we react when a person withdraws?«

We’re also using the stage set to convey Violanta’s interior feelings. We’ve got a large helix jutting dramatically out at an angle and mirroring something bursting forth from Violanta’s personality that she is loath to acknowledge. This feature of the stage design is the audience’s key into the realms of the heroine’s soul. It’s my nod to the doors in Bartók’s BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE, except that here the soul of a woman lies at the heart of the story.

I want to draw the audience into the core of the work. I want them to be properly jolted by what is an ultra-compressed psychodrama. It helps that VIOLANTA is a revived work rather than a much-performed opera requiring a fresh slant, like Mozart’s classic DON GIOVANNI, for instance, which I was privileged to direct recently at the Bayerische Staatsoper.

I’m hoping that with Korngold and VIOLANTA the audiences are coming to it clean, with no preconceptions. That way I should be able to build a momentum within which the opera can unfurl its full power and emotionality.