Much admired by Berg, Puccini, and countless others, Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Die tote Stadt (1920), the composer's most enduring work and one of the finest operas of its period, lies at the watershed between German Romanticism and the emergent Neue Sachlichkeit (New Realism) that reached its peak in the 1920s. An epic tale based on Georges Rodenbach's Bruges-la-Morte (1892) and originally developed under the working title Der Triumph das Lebens (The Triumph of Life), the opera calls for musical forces of Brobdingnagian proportions. In addition to the principal vocalists, three separate choruses, and eight offstage sopranos, the score makes use of bass trumpet, two harps, a massive assortment of percussion (including tuned and untuned bells), a wind machine, four keyboards, a mandolin, and two onstage bands, all supplementing a full-blown symphony orchestra with triple woodwinds and a mammoth brass section. In fact, the opera's very scale—and the attendant expense—has been the principal factor precluding more frequent productions.

The size of the ensemble readily lends itself to the extraordinarily rich and sumptuous orchestration for which Korngold was renowned, here as much an integral dramatic element as it is in the operas of Strauss. The epic, heroic cast of the music seized the hearts and minds of the public immediately after the opera's simultaneous premieres in Hamburg and Cologne. Puccini's reaction to the music was to pronounce Korngold "the strongest hope for new German music"; for a time thereafter, Korngold was saddled with the sobriquet "the Viennese Puccini."

The story is a multi-layered psychological drama focusing on a man named Paul who is obsessed with the memory of his deceased wife, Marie. He encounters a woman, Marietta, who is the image of Marie. This encounter causes Paul to have a series of disturbing visions which causes him to question his devotion to his dead wife. The city of Bruges, to which the opera's title refers, provides a backdrop of darkness and death for the haunting story.

Throughout his life, Korngold was drawn to complex themes, and the psychological intensity of Die tote Stadt inspired him to create music of a highly mystical quality, capable of transporting the listener to a different place and time. The composer was both a brilliant melodist and an imaginative orchestrator, qualities which are evident throughout Die tote Stadt. The famous "Marietta's Lied" (Marietta's Song) is among the most exquisitely beautiful arias in all of twentieth century opera and it is often performed by the world's leading sopranos. Equally moving is the nostalgic "Pierrot's Tanzlied" (Pierrot's Dance Song) for baritone voice, which appears in Act Two. Die tote Stadt was highly successful in the years following its composition, with performances throughout Europe and at New York's Metropolitan Opera. In the middle of the century, Korngold's music was labeled by many critics as too conservative, and Die tote Stadt was seldom performed for several decades. In recent years, the opera has been well represented on major recordings and has been produced occasionally at a number of leading opera houses throughout the world.

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