On February 1, 2025, I attended a concert performance of Erich Korngold’s *Die tote Stadt* at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, presented in association with the Boston Lyric Opera. Conducted by Andris Nelsons and featuring soprano Christine Goerke, the performance highlighted the profound tenderness of a work that embodies the twilight of the Romantic era. A remarkable prodigy who later became one of Hollywood’s most influential composers, Korngold began the opera at age 19 and completed it at 23. It premiered simultaneously in Cologne and Hamburg in December 1920, becoming one of the most significant operatic successes of the period. The opera’s central theme—the struggle to reconcile the memory of a lost loved one—deeply resonated with audiences still grappling with the collective trauma of World War I.
