ROBIN HOOD'S LAST VICTORY

The Academy Awards and the Nazis.

by Glen Quick

We all know about Robin Hood, the legendary outlaw of Sherwood Forest and his ongoing battle with the wicked Sherriff of Nottingham. You can read all about him here.

My earliest recollections are based on reading the borrowed library book of my older brother when I was home in bed sick as a small child and had not long before learned to read. I, like most children, was captivated by the character and vividly remember seeing the spectacular colour film made in 1938 'The Adventures of Robin Hood', starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Robin was portrayed as a hero on a national scale, leading the oppressed Saxons in revolt against their Norman overlords while Richard the Lionheart was away fighting in the Crusades. Robin Hood was always on the side of the poor and weak, robbing the rich to help the poor and righting wrongs and correcting injustices.

Even if all of this was an invention of Hollywood, it was a powerful influence over me and my contemporaries and how we envied Errol Flynn, swinging down on ropes from high oak trees to rescue Olivia de Havilland.

But there was another victory for Robin Hood in 1938 which affected the history of film music in a very strange way.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was an Austrian composer of Jewish descent, born in Brno [nowadays in Czechoslovakia] in1897. A child prodigy, his father Julius Korngold was a lawyer and later Vienna's most influential music critic succeeding the influential Eduard Hanslick [also a Czech] at the 'Neue Freie Presse', the most influential newspaper in Vienna. When little Erich was 9 years old, his father took him along to Gustav Mahler, Director of the Imperial Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic. He played through his Cantata 'Gold' and Mahler said that he was a genius. When Erich was only 11, he composed a ballet, 'Die Schneemann' or 'The Snowman' which was presented at the Vienna Court Opera including a command performance for the old Emperor, Franz Josef.

Success followed success including the sensational 1920 premiere of his opera 'Die tote Stadt' or 'The Dead City' in two cities on the same night. Richard Strauss and Giacomo Puccini both said that he was a genius. Everything was going his way except that by the late 1920's, Korngold's lush harmonic style was going out of fashion with the moves in contemporary music. Still, it suited a great many and he was much in demand as a composer of incidental music for stage plays. Things came to a head in 1927 when Korngold's great opera 'Der Wunder der Heliane' ['The Miracle of Heliane'] was compared very unfavourably by critics with the first ever jazz opera 'Jonny Spielt Auf' ['Jonny Plays Up'] composed by the Czech/Austrian composer Ernst Krenek [who incidentally, was briefly married to Anna Mahler, Gustav’s sole surviving daughter].

Defeated temporarily in the opera theatre, Korngold set about writing symphonic music and adapting, arranging and conducting new versions of the classic operettas. While doing this, Korngold met and collaborated with the legendary stage director Max Reinhardt [also of Jewish descent].

In 1934, Reinhardt invited Korngold to Hollywood to write the film music for his screen version of Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream'. The film and its music was a great success and Korngold found himself with a new career; writing serious music in Austria and composing original film scores for Hollywood. Some of the films he worked on then were 'Anthony Adverse' for which he was awarded an Oscar; 'The Prince and the Pauper' and 'Captain Blood' [the latter two starring Errol Flynn]. Up until then, most film music came from adapting well-known classics for the sound track. Korngold was the first to bring a 'through-composed' style to films. The music was tailored to fit the plot and the action. The music was recorded as Korngold conducted the studio orchestra while looking at the projected images on a large screen and not at the score. No wonder it all fitted so well in the days before sophisticated electronic editing.

At the same time, Korngold had found a new subject for an opera; it turned out to be his last opera but we’re getting ahead of the story.

The opera was 'Die Kathrin' which is tuneful but rather corny and Hollywoodish in its characters and storyline. The opera was completed in 1937 and Korngold arranged with the Vienna Opera House for it to be premiered there in March 1938. An ideal cast was arranged and the singers learned their parts. The great Czech soprano Jarmila Novotna and the star Polish tenor Jan Kiepura were to sing the leading roles and Bruno Walter would conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the pit. Both Kiepura and Walter were of Jewish descent. Then events took a strange turn.

Kiepura (right) was the superstar of his age; devastatingly handsome, he could both sing and act and was married to the beautiful and equally famous actress and soprano Marta Eggerth (left) [still alive aged 99]. Kiepura was much in demand in the theatre, on film and in recital and in 1938 won a lucrative season’s contract with the New York Metropolitan Opera which meant he could not sing in the spring premiere. He was also contracted to give 80 solo recitals across the USA in that year. Richard Tauber, an old friend of Korngold, agreed to take over the tenor role in “Die Kathrin” but was committed to finishing a film in England where he was living by then. Tauber was also of Jewish ancestry and had left Europe for London in 1933 when Hitler came to power.

There was no alternative; the premiere had to be postponed and Dr Eckmann, the Director of the Vienna Opera promised Korngold a first rate premier later in the year; autumn instead of spring.

Then, out of the blue, on the 22nd of January 1938, a telegram arrived in Vienna from Hollywood. Would Korngold go immediately to Hollywood and write the film score for Robin Hood? Korngold consulted with Dr Eckmann who said 'Go to Hollywood' and so on the 29th of January; the whole Korngold family including the elderly father sailed for Hollywood. Hitler’s troops marched into Austria on the 12th of March 1938 and it became part of the new German Empire. Korngold's music, along with all other music from Jewish composers was banned. Korngold did not return to Austria until 1949.

Meanwhile, Korngold’s music for the Robin Hood film won him his second Oscar and he was nominated for his scores for 'The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex' (1939) and 'The Sea Hawk' (1940).

Back in Austria, Korngold’s completed scores for several works were locked in the safe of his house at 35 Sternewartestrasse in Vienna. Being of Jewish descent and absent from the country, his property was appropriated [stolen] and much of it destroyed. At considerable risk, his Viennese publisher engaged two men to break into the already appropriated and occupied house in the middle of the night and steal the completed works from the safe. They succeeded and the manuscripts were then sent on in secret to Korngold and today, they are in the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

Korngold became an American citizen in 1943 but by 1946, he was disillusioned with Hollywood and the films he was being asked to compose for. His last film score was for 'Deception' starring Bette Davis although he did adapt some of Wagner's music for the 1955 film 'Magic Fire'. He also made a cameo appearance in that film as the conductor Hans Richter.

Korngold continued to write his concert music in a rich, chromatic late Romantic style, with the Violin Concerto premiered by Jascha Heifetz among his notable later works. In Europe, his music was not well received, his style being criticised for its lush melodies and 'Hollywood style'. Korngold died in North Hollywood on November 29, 1957 and was buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

But what of 'Die Kathrin'? It was eventually given its premiere in neutral Stockholm in October 1939 where it met with hostile anti-Semitic reviews. It didn’t have its Vienna premiere until October 1950 where its lush romantic style was out of tune with the austere post war times and a Vienna at that time still war damaged and under partial Russian occupation. For a time, Korngold’s music was in total eclipse.

In 1973, RCA released a warmly received recording of Korngold’s film music [RCA Victor Gold Seal Catalogue Number 7890] conducted by Charles Gerhardt and supervised by George Korngold, Erich's son. Further releases followed and in recent times, all of his operas have been recorded while the 1920 opera 'Die tote Stadt' has entered the repertoire of many European opera houses as well as having sell-out performances at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In 2012, Cheryl Barker will star in a new production of 'Die tote Stadt' for the Australian Opera in Sydney. The Swedish mezzo-soprano, Anne Sofie von Otter, has recorded many Korngold songs at the suggestion of her usual accompanist, Bengt Forsberg, himself a Korngold enthusiast. Forsberg and his friends have recorded most of Korngold's chamber music. Other labels continue to record and release his music. It's also interesting to note that the 1973 RCA recording was so admired by the producer George Lucas that he asked John Williams to imitate its style when composing the music for his famous ‘Star Wars’ series of films.

At last Korngold's time has come again. But the intriguing question is what would have happened to both Korngold and his music if the call of Robin Hood had not come from far-off Hollywood in 1938?

I think we’re entitled to call it Robin Hood’s last victory. Don’t you?

 

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