Sign up to receive alerts when articles like this are published. Its music, though illustrative, is more than mere illustration. Its story balances fact with fantasy, and the use of an opera company within an opera company offers nice allusions to appearance and reality. Its smooth, welcoming harmonic language like Richard Strauss on tranquilizers offers no resistance. Anything this accessible this quickly must have something wrong with it.
Substance implies depths, and depths necessarily take time to plumb.
The calendar may also be an irritant. Korngold's opera dates from 1920. This tame and lovely little piece is like a misplaced sign on the road forward. Yesterday's delicacy becomes today's decadence. The burden of comprehensibility shifts from composer to audience.