Der
Ring
des Polykrates
The
Ring of Polycrates, Opus 7
Heitere
opera in One Act (10 scenes)
Libretto by Julius Leopold Korngold and Leo Feld,
after Heinrich Teweles's lustspiele (1888)
Composed in 1913-14
Premiered 28 March 1916, Hoftheater, Munich
Wilhelm
Arndt, court music director
Laura, his wife
Florian Doblinger, timpanist
and music copyist
Lieschen, in Laura's service
Peter Vogel, Wilhelm's friend
After the sensational success of earlier works, Korngold's first opera aroused great expectations. It was premiered in a double bill with Violanta, cunducted by Bruno Walter.
Synopsis
A happily married young couple are put 'on trial' by an old friend whose lack of success, finanlcially and domestically, contrasts sharply with the couple's situation. The friend tell the husband about Polycrates, a successful man who, to avert the gods' envy, sacrificed his dearest possession--his ring. The husband discovers that his wife once loved the friend, though more out of pity than desire, and she still wears his ring. When she hurls it out the window, the friend catches and returns it. The jewel is restored, so the couple's only sacrifice can be their friend. He leaves and the couple sit down to read together.
Concise and melodic, Der Ring des Polykrates confirmed Korngold's natural feeling for the theatre. The late-Romantic musical language has obvious debts to Wagner's chromaticism and to Richard Strauss' tone-colos, while the use of unifying motifs as an important part of the work's structure was usrely an element Korngold learned from his teacher Zemlinsky. There are also many individual passages, among the best of which is the aria "Kann's nicht heute fasses" sung by the wife to the accompaniment of muted strings, celesta, harp and flute.
