Perfect Circles

It must be said up front that, whatever reservations one might have about Korngold as a musical dramatist, the new production of Violanta at the Deutsche Oper Berlin was one of the finest stagings to appear in any Berlin house in recent years. That the opera also received a suitably opulent performance from Sir Donald Runnicles and a well-balanced trio of principals seemed almost surplus to requirement; David Hermann’s deceptively simple and flawlessly executed staging drew us effortlessly into the eponymous character’s spiral of self-examination and, in doing so, offered an eloquent reminder that even a mediocre story can be elevated in the retelling.

Violanta was Korngold’s second opera – written when he was only seventeen – and its success paved the way for his later, more ambitious operas Die tote Stadt and Das Wunder der Heliane.…