The play was translated into German by Siegfried Trebitsch under the title Die stille Stadt (The Silent City), which he later changed to Das Trugbild (The Mirage).

Trebitsch recalled "[I] met the young master Erich Wolfgang Korngold in search of a scenario or, even better, a mood or operatic background that could be dramatically elaborated.

[5] When Die tote Stadt had its premiere on 4 December 1920, Korngold was just 23 years old with two short one-act operas, Der Ring des Polykrates and Violanta, already to his name.

[1] The success of these earlier works was so great that Die tote Stadt was subject to a fierce competition among German theatres for the right to the world premiere.

In the end, an unusual double premiere was arranged and the opera opened simultaneously at the Stadttheater Hamburg and in Cologne (Glockengasse).

The opera's theme of life, hope and overcoming the loss of a loved one resonated with contemporary audiences of the 1920s who had just come through the trauma and grief of World War I, and this undoubtedly fuelled the work's popularity in a Vienna, that under Freud's legacy, took dreams seriously.

[6] Even in 1920, the opera's style was considered anachronistic, looking back to Puccini, Richard Strauss and the Viennese operetta tradition.

[7] After World War II it's late-romanticism was considered dated when compared to modernism and it fell into obscurity, despite a restaging in Munich two years before Korngold's death.

The first French staged performance was in April 2001 in Strasbourg under the baton of Jan Latham-Koenig with Torsten Kerl [de] (Paul) and Angela Denoke (Marietta).

The opera received its UK premiere on 14 January 1996 in a concert performance by the Kensington Symphony Orchestra conducted by Russell Keable at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, with Ian Caley (Paul) and Christine Teare (Marie/Marietta).

[9][1] The opera was first performed in Latin America at Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on September 19, 1999, with Carlos Bengolea as Paul, Cynthia Makris as Marie/Marietta and David Pittman-Jennings as Frank; Stefan Lano was the conductor.

It featured Jonathan Burton as Paul, Sara Gartland as Marie/Marietta (staging), Kara Shay Thomson as Marie/Marietta (vocals), Daniel Belcher as Frank/Fritz, and Elizabeth Bishop as Brigitta.

According to Leon Botstein, the revival is associated with a broader reconsideration of 20th-century music, both academically and in performance, stating in 2020 "I was brought up in a time when Korngold was considered a minor figure, a kind of lingering late Romantic who had an ambivalent or perhaps an even hostile sense of the modern ...nobody took this stuff seriously until recently.

She is in Bruges as a dancer in an opera company performing Meyerbeer's Robert le diable, in which she plays the part of Helena.

[1] From this point in the story until almost the end of the opera, the events are all part of a vision taking place in Paul's mind.

Back in his house, where he and Marietta have spent the night, it is the morning of a religious festival, the Procession of the Holy Blood which is held on Ascension Day in Bruges.

Marietta is increasingly impatient and starts to taunt him by dancing seductively while stroking his dead wife's hair.

Brigitta enters and informs him that Marietta has come back to pick up her umbrella which she left at the house when she departed just a few minutes earlier.

[4] Julius Korngold describes the appearance of Marietta as a divine intervention, and the central Traumvision (dream sequence) in which the agitated Paul transfers his emotions from his dead wife to the dancer, as a device that guards him from dangerous disillusionment.

The vision, with the dancer's orgiastic movements, enables him to grasp Marietta's real nature but also the Totenvergötterung (mortuary cult) in which he has become entrapped.

Schmerzlicher Zwiespalt des Gefühls (How far should we give way to our grief, how far dare, without disaster, painful conflict of feelings).