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The score calls for a colossal late Romantic orchestra, including several unusual instruments (bass trumpet, bass tuba), an arsenal's worth of percussion, and organ -- fortunately, Symphony Hall has the last one covered. In other words, it's catnip for Nelsons, as were 2022's "Wozzeck" and last year's "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk." And like those earlier operas in concert at Symphony Hall, the orchestral sound flooded the room such that some singers (particularly baritone Elliot Madore, in the dual role of Frank and Fritz) were almost inaudible even at full cry. Nelsons absolutely knows how to maximize the sound's intensity while keeping the volume under control -- he did so deftly in Act 3's religious procession scene, which featured the boys of the St. Paul's Choir School singing offstage -- and the experience would have been dramatically improved had he done so more.
The music may have been thought outmoded, but the base narrative of the opera is surprisingly modern, albeit with fin-de-siècle trappings of gender roles. The libretto, written by the composer and his father (music critic Julius Korngold) under the pseudonym Paul Schott, was loosely based on Georges Rodenbach's 1899 Symbolist novella "Bruges-la-morte." A lonely widower in the gloomy Belgian city is in mourning for his wife, Marie, when he meets the libertine ballerina Marietta, who strongly resembles his dear departed. He becomes obsessed with her and eventually devolves into violence when said double (Marietta) doesn't sufficiently imitate the saintly companion of his memories.
The opera has been brought up in the same breath as Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo," which features a similar doppelganger plot device. It's even more closely mirrored in Konami's 2001 horror video game "Silent Hill 2," which received a high-profile remake last year; there, the player character is also a widower who wanders a foggy town haunted by the memory of his wife, Mary, which manifests in the form of a look-alike with a contrasting personality, the flirtatious Maria; one of the game's endings also matches the opera's. If film director Robert Eggers were to seize on the story and adapt it, I wouldn't be surprised in the least, and the resulting movie likely would have little in common with the opera. The libretto describes Bruges' gloomy quietude, but the score is alive with vibrant color and emotion.
The role of the widower, Paul, always requires a heldentenor, but this production needed a hero tenor as well after Brandon Jovanovich bowed out last week for health reasons. English tenor David Butt Philip, a veteran Wagnerian, gamely answered the call and met the role's Herculean demands with his resonant, bell-like high range. He sounded a shade strained in Act I, but rather than unraveling over the course of the evening, his voice only became more limber as Paul's nightmare progressed. Marietta's gaggle of theatrical compadres (Elisa Sunshine, Amber Monroe, Joshua Sanders, Terrence Chin-Loy and Neal Ferreira) added decadent harmonies to Act 2's nighttime bacchanal. Mezzo-soprano Karen Cargil brought hearty warmth to the small but significant role of the housekeeper Brigitta, while Madore was thoroughly luscious when he could be heard.