Composed 1919 Librettist Erich Wolfgang Korngold | Composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold Language German | |
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Lyricists Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Julius Korngold Similar Die tote Stadt, Das Wunder der Helia, Violanta, The Land of Smiles, Paganini | ||
"Glück das mir verblieb" (German for "Joy, that near to me remained") is a duet from the 1920 opera Die tote Stadt (The Dead City) composed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold to a libretto by his father Julius Korngold as Paul Schott. It is written for a soprano and tenor. Also called the "Lute Song", it appears in act 1, approx. 25 minutes into the opera. For performances as a concert aria, a soprano will sing both parts.
The "dead city" in the opera's title is Bruges, Belgium, identified in the opera with Marie, the dead wife of Paul. At the start of act 1, Paul confides in a friend the extraordinary news that he has seen Marie, or her double, in the town and that he has invited her to the house. She arrives, and Paul addresses her as Marie, but she corrects him: she is Marietta, a dancer from Lille. He is enchanted by her, especially when she accepts his request for a song, "Glück das mir verblieb". The words tell of the joy of love, but there is a sadness in it also because its theme is the transitoriness of life. Their voices combine in the verse which extols the power of love to remain constant in a fleeting world.