Mannes Opera to Present U.S. Premiere of THE SILENT SERENADE

Mannes Opera at The New School College of Performing Arts will present the U.S. premiere of THE SILENT SERENADE (Die Stumme Serenade) by Erich Wolfgang Korngold on March 13 and March 14 at 7:00 p.m. at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater in New York City. The production caps a season curated by Managing Artistic Director Emma Griffin focused on rarities and contemporary work.

Written in the late 1940s after Korngold’s Hollywood career, The Silent Serenade is a romantic farce based on a short story by Austrian writer Raoul Auernheimer, with a libretto by Victor Clement. Intended for Broadway at a time when hybrid works such as Blitzstein’s Regina and Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti found success, the operetta blends operatic craft with elements of mid-century movie musicals. After a troubled early production history, including an aborted Shubert Brothers run, the work fell into obscurity and has been rarely performed. Mannes Opera’s staging marks its long-overdue U.S. premiere, presented in English with supertitles.

Set in Naples, the story follows dressmaker Andrea Coclé, secretly in love with actress Sylvia Lombardi, who is engaged to Prime Minister Lugarini. After an attempted abduction and a bomb plot implicate Andrea, he falsely confesses in exchange for a promised royal pardon. Political upheaval, mistaken identities, and a revolutionary twist ultimately lead to Andrea’s exoneration and reunion with Sylvia.

The production is conducted by Cris Frisco and directed by Emma Griffin, with set design by Amy Rubin, lighting design by Masha Tsimring, and costume design by Terese Wadden. The Mannes Orchestra performs, and the cast includes Daria Tereshchenko, Megan Barker, Gaeun Song, Sean Seungho Cha, Enes Pektas, Thomasluke Flórez-Mansi, Dmitry Mironov, Christina Seo Young Kim, Mia Farinelli, Zoe Brooks, and Nik Lutomski.

Korngold, an Austrian-Jewish composer forced into exile by the rise of Nazism, became one of Hollywood’s most influential film composers, winning Academy Awards for Anthony Adverse and The Adventures of Robin Hood. Earlier in Europe, his opera Die tote Stadt established him as a major voice of his generation. Though long associated with lush romanticism, his reputation has experienced renewed appreciation in recent decades.