Authors: Michael Haas
Heliane
vs
Jonny
With the music of Korngold's
Heliane
anticipating so much that would become familiar to generations of film lovers, and in the light of Eisler's reviews and its general reception at the time, it is worth recounting how the work came to be written in such a hostile musical environment. The Viennese poet Hans Kaltneker, fascinated by
Violanta
, managed to pen an opera text that he presented to Korngold called
Die Heilige
. He died soon afterwards at the tragically young age of 22. Julius dryly describes
Die Heilige
as recounting ‘sexual difficulties’ beyond those that featured in the poet's other works.
32
It was apparently not possible to set in its original form, and the Jewish playwright
Hans Müller, who had been the librettist for
Violanta
, was approached to rework it for the stage. In doing so, he reduced the sexual aspect and concentrated on the themes of love and redemption set in a joyless totalitarian country.
As with most important Korngold premieres, the Hamburg Opera and Egon Pollak won the rights to the first performance, with local soprano Maria Hussa (who would also sing the role of Anita in Krenek's
Jonny spielt auf
) in the title role. It opened on 7 October 1927 and the Viennese premiere followed three weeks later, running for a further 26 performances. Korngold composed the title role with Maria Jeritza in mind but, as she was singing
Violanta
at New York's Metropolitan Opera; Lotte Lehmann stepped in as a replacement. The tenor role of Der Fremder (‘The Stranger’) was sung by Jan Kiepura. The Hamburg premiere was a public and critical success, and continued with a run of a further 18 performances. In Berlin, however, Hanns Eisler was not alone in his savage dismissal of the work as outdated and irrelevant. Both the cast and even the conductor, Korngold's friend Bruno Walter, distanced themselves from it in the light of the unrelentingly harsh and dismissive press.
The symbolism of
Jonny
, a black New World jazz musician stealing a violin from an Old World classical virtuoso who is killed in a final race to regain possession of the instrument, was not lost on Julius Korngold. Krenek's throwing down the gauntlet against the sanctity of European culture was triumphantly picked up by Julius Korngold. Indeed, European culture had a particularly powerful hold on Jews of Julius's generation just as it was being viewed as an irrelevant inheritance by non-Jews of Krenek's generation. The spirit of the age, however, condemned Julius to defeat before the first battle had even been fought. It was a further twist of fate that this crucial battle would involve a work written by his son Erich. After its premiere in Leipzig on 10 February 1927,
Jonny
went on to conquer the mightiest bastions of opera, including New York's Metropolitan Opera. It was translated into 18 languages and, worst of all for the Korngolds, it was scheduled to come to Vienna in time to clash with
Das Wunder der Heliane
.
The
Kulturkampf
between
Jonny
and
Heliane
manifested itself in often quite bizarre ways. Austrian Tobacco created two new brands of cigarettes called
Jonny
and
Heliane
; even more surreal was that behind closed doors, anti-Semitic National Socialists were making common cause with Julius Korngold. In an Orwellian twist, and in order to rid the State Opera of a work written by the non-Jewish Krenek, he and the character
Jonny
were made out to be ‘Jewish polluters’.
To Julius,
Jonny
was narcissistic nonsense.
33
Journalistic scorn for
Jonny
in the otherwise liberal
Neue Freie Presse
is notable by the paper's utter silence
during the run-up to its much anticipated premiere. It was thoroughly trashed by Julius in subsequent reviews, both in his feuilleton and in an unsigned leading article on the front page. Perhaps nothing better expresses the paper's contempt for the work than a short paragraph to be found in its ‘Kleine Chronik’ on 10 November 1928 announcing the appearance at Vienna's Konzerthaus of an American jazz singer named Jack Smith: ‘We assumed that it would be inevitable that with the State Opera presenting Variété, it was only a matter of time before we encountered a bar-room singer from America without a voice at the Konzerthaus.‘
34
This was tame compared with the German nationalist newspaper
Deutsch-österreichisch Tageszeitung
, which attacked
Jonny
with the sort of anti-Semitic vehemence that had become the weapon of choice against anything with which the Pan-German Austrian press disagreed.
35
Heliane
was understood by many as mere cannon fodder in Julius's war against progressive musical developments perpetrated by composers who were of similar age to Erich. Like many Austrian nationalists, Krenek had little time for Prussian Berlin and he retreated to Vienna following the unexpected success of
Jonny
. Krenek described visiting a performance of
Heliane
as ‘either the high-point, or the low-point of this particular period, depending on your point of view’.
36
In writing more extensively about Korngold in his memoirs, he mentions the tragic elements in the relationship between father and son which made it easier to sympathise with Erich, and how his best music was written while he was still a teenager (and at the front line of the avant-garde). From Krenek's perspective, Julius had kept Erich from following his natural instincts and hindered the boy's talent. He recalled meeting Erich many years later in Los Angeles after the death of Julius and described him as being ‘a broken and disillusioned man who had nothing to show but a handful of long-forgotten film scores’.
37
Heliane
failed to achieve the success of either
Die tote Stadt
or
Jonny spielt auf
. Krenek's opera had shown how far into the past Korngold had retreated. Yet on the other side of the world, an event took place on the day before the Hamburg premiere of
Heliane
that would have a far-reaching effect on Korngold's future and ultimately render the attacks on him irrelevant. Hollywood released
The Jazz Singer
, the first commercially successful motion picture with synchronized sound. Even before the arrival of Hitler, more and more Austrian and German talent had relocated to America, where Hollywood's appetite for all things European seemed to equal Europe's appetite for all things American.
Korngold the Arranger
The truth was that the cultural fights picked by Julius had put his son Erich in an impossible position. Moreover, until he was conscripted into the army at the age of nineteen, he had – according to Julius – not been allowed to leave the parental home unaccompanied.
38
It was clear that Julius had also pushed him into situations where he was unable to have his works judged without prejudice. Taking a side step as an arranger of other people's music was the perfect antidote to Julius's attempts to influence every aspect of Erich's life and helped to neutralise Julius's use of Erich as a weapon in his public battles. While it is true that Erich's most progressive music was composed while still a teenager, he equally loved the nostalgia of Viennese operetta. In arranging the works of others, he saw a chance to get closer to music he adored and to earn enough money to achieve financial independence. This prepared Erich for his future as a film music composer by forcing him to supply music on demand and to work together with a team to a strict deadline. Viennese composers were never shy about arranging operetta: Schoenberg and Zemlinsky did so frequently and often gave similar assignments to their pupils.
Erich Korngold first met his future wife Luise von Sonnenthal in 1917. She was the granddaughter of Adolf Ritter von Sonnenthal, one of the great actors of the Burgtheater and one of the first prominent Jews to be knighted following the ‘emancipation’ of 1867. Luzi, as Erich called her, was an actress who had starred in several films. In addition, she was an extremely accomplished pianist. Yet despite coming from one of Vienna's most prestigious families, Julius was against the relationship. He was hostile to any relationship that questioned his position as absolute mentor over every aspect of Erich's life. In his memoirs, he grudgingly acknowledges Luzi's abundant gifts, but hints darkly that she was responsible for bringing Erich into the world of cinema.
39
Johann Strauss's operetta
Eine Nacht in Venedig
from 1885 had been one of the composer's greatest disappointments. His widow, Adele, thought that if it were to be carefully reworked for more modern tastes, it could enjoy the success previously denied. The Korngolds knew Adele, and Erich loved Strauss's music. Korngold eagerly took the opportunity offered by the multi-talented writer, performer and entrepreneur Hubert Marischka to arrange and conduct performances of the work which would feature the popular tenor Richard Tauber. A long run at the Theater an der Wien followed a successful opening on 25 October 1923. It then travelled through Austria
and Germany, returning to the State Opera with a cast including Maria Jeritza, Adele Kern, Alfred Jerger, Koloman von Pataky, and Hubert Marischka himself.
Cagliostro in Wien
was the next Strauss operetta that Korngold adapted and updated. This too was a success, opening at the Bürgertheater
40
on 13 April 1927. Korngold went on to concoct a Johann Strauss pastiche entitled
Das Lied der Liebe
as a vehicle for Richard Tauber, as well as arranging two operettas by Leo Fall:
Rosen aus Florida
and
Die geschiedene Frau
– which opened at Berlin's Theater am Nollendorfplatz on 1 February 1933, two days after Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor.
Korngold's association with the theatrical wizard Max Reinhardt was the single most important collaboration of his professional life. Ultimately, it would save him from the Nazis and, over time, Reinhardt became Erich's principal artistic advisor and an effective antidote to his father. In the short term, they were responsible for two of the biggest theatrical successes of the decade. Early in 1929, Reinhardt proposed that Korngold adapt Offenbach's
La vie parisienne
. However, Korngold thought the work weak and they settled on
Die Fledermaus
in a new arrangement that required three singers in the principal roles, with actors in the other parts. The opening at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin on 8 June1929 exceeded all previous public and critical successes.
Die Fledermaus
ran throughout Europe, including in Paris, where it was given under the French title of
Chauve-souris
at the Théâtre Pigalle conducted by Bruno Walter. It even made it to Broadway in 1942, where it enjoyed a run of 520 performances.
The Great Waltz
, or
Walzer aus Wien
as it was called in German, was to become Korngold's biggest operetta success. The book was written by Hubert's brother Ernst Marischka and Heinz Reichert, and the score was a compilation of numbers composed by Johann Strauss Father and Son. Korngold drafted in Julius Bittner to help. He was not only a family friend and the composer of the popular opera
Das höllisch Gold
, but he was also elderly, suffering from acute diabetes and near penury. In truth, Bittner was too ill to contribute much, but with the work's success and the ban on Jewish composers after 1933 (which of course included Korngold), Bittner became the only arranger to receive a credit. The Korngold Collection at the Library of Congress includes a deeply moving letter from Bittner's son, a returning prisoner of war, in which he expresses his most humble gratitude to Korngold for giving his parents the financial stability to survive the Nazi years. Bittner died in 1939, and the royalties kept him and his wife solvent.
Walzer aus Wien
was a hit from the moment it opened at Vienna's Stadttheater on 30 October 1930. It opened in London the following year
as
Waltzes from Vienna
and ran for 600 performances, with a similar success in Paris as
Valse de Vienne
. In 1934, it reopened in London under the new title
The Great Waltz
, by which it became known to English-language audiences from various film versions. It opened as
The Great Waltz
on Broadway at the Center Theater directed by Hassard Short on 22 September 1934 and ran for a further 289 performances. All of the film versions, including the one directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1934, would mischievously keep to the original Korngold treatment while using arrangements by house composers, thus evading the considerable royalty payments due to Korngold and Bittner.
Reinhardt had not given up on his wish to mount an Offenbach operetta, and at Christmas in 1930 he finally persuaded Korngold.
Die schöne Helene
(
La belle Hélène
), with a new libretto by Egon Friedell and Hanns Sassmann, became their second international success. It opened at Berlin's Theater am Kurfürstendamm on 14 June 1931. After a run of 144 performances, it moved to London's Adelphi Theatre, where it was entitled simply
Helen
. Léonide Massine was the choreographer and Korngold conducted the opening performance, attended by the likes of Noel Coward, J. B. Priestley, Ivor Novello, Vivien Leigh, Tallulah Bankhead, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndyke and Gertrude Lawrence.
41
From 1933, Korngold's opportunities for work in Nazi Germany – including the many operetta arrangements – disappeared. The family retreated to its comfortable estate at Schloss Höselberg in Austria's Salzkammergut, where Erich began composing a new opera,
Die Kathrin
, even though there was no hope of it ever reaching a German stage under the new regime. Reinhardt, however, had managed to land a contract in Hollywood where he had accepted an offer from Warner Brothers to direct a film version of Shakespeare's
A Midsummer Night's Dream
, for which he asked Korngold to provide the score. Korngold arranged Mendelssohn's incidental music along with extracts from the composer's other works, ingeniously joining them together by scrupulously composed Mendelssohnian links. The move from arranging operetta to film could not have been more natural; that it should be Mendelssohn who would provide the musical opportunity carries its own intriguing symbolism.