In the enchanting world of post-Wagnerian opera, it is remarkable to notice that Wagner's influence may have been even greater outside the realm of opera than within it. Perhaps even more than in opera, Richard Wagner left his mark on the world beyond. In film, for example—a medium that did not yet exist during Wagner’s lifetime. Film music would draw directly and extensively from his use of leitmotifs. His influence can be heard in the soundtracks of the 20th and 21st centuries. While 20th-century operas distinguish themselves from Wagner, stepping beyond the boundaries of tonality (Berg, Schoenberg) and embracing extreme dissonance (Ligeti, Penderecki), creating more alienating and unpredictable listening experiences that stray from Wagner’s direct, expressive musical language, film music built upon Wagner's techniques in ways that many modern operas did not.

​Wagner’s influence on opera after him was, of course, still significant. Where his impact on German opera was undeniable, his influence on Italian opera was even nothing short of revolutionary. In response to Wagner, Italian opera underwent a profound transformation, resulting in fundamental stylistic adaptations.
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Verdi broke away from traditional number opera in Otello and Falstaff, while Puccini later used leitmotifs to create dramatic unity. Composers such as Pietro Mascagni (Cavalleria rusticana), Ruggero Leoncavallo (Pagliacci), and Umberto Giordano (Andrea Chénier) adopted Wagner’s orchestral richness and continuous musical flow, incorporating them into darker, psychologically charged dramas, influenced by Wagner’s intensity. This led to more through-composed forms, breaking away from rigid aria structures.

​The world of post-Wagnerian German opera is one of evolution rather than revolution. Composers such as Richard Strauss and Hans Pfitzner refined Wagnerian principles while developing their own styles. Richard Strauss expanded Wagnerian orchestration and chromaticism, with Elektra pushing harmonic tension toward modernism. Hans Pfitzner retained Wagner’s orchestral richness and leitmotifs but blended them with Renaissance polyphony in Palestrina.

In the world after Tristan und Isolde, we also encounter names like Franz Schreker and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who, after a period of being forgotten (canceled by the Nazis), have returned to considerable (Korngold) to moderate (Schreker) prominence. Another composer who was long forgotten is Rudi Stephan.

In 1915, Stephan enlisted in the German army. "As long as nothing happens to my head—there are still so many beautiful things in it," he said to his mother upon departure. Ten days after leaving Worms, he was shot in the head by a bullet from a Russian sniper on the Eastern Front. "I can't bear it anymore," were his last words before, in an attempt to escape the horrors of war, he raised his head too far above the trench. A promising composer was tragically taken too soon.
 
Stephan had already composed several orchestral works, as well as pieces for solo violin and ensembles. His opera Die ersten Menschen was his first major work and had just been completed when war broke out in 1914. It premiered posthumously in Frankfurt in 1920. Although a few performances followed, Stephan's name faded into oblivion. However, as a recent rediscovery shows, Die ersten Menschen is a fascinating addition to the early 20th-century opera repertoire. Its late-Romantic style aligns with the musical language of Max Reger and Franz Schreker but possesses enough individuality to suggest that Stephan would have developed in his own, unique direction.

The libretto of Die ersten Menschen was written by Otto Borngräber, based on his own play of the same name. That play, an erotic mystery drama, was banned throughout the Kingdom of Bavaria after its first performance in Munich in 1912. Borngräber based the story on the biblical Genesis and the origins of humanity. Transforming biblical drama into opera was nothing new—Richard Strauss had proven its success with Salome (based on a play by Oscar Wilde, which itself was inspired by a short biblical passage). And a potential scandal only helped. (Strauss famously remarked that the “scandal of Salome” earned him a villa in Garmisch.)

The opera begins when Adam and Eve have two adult sons, Cain and Abel. The characters are: Adahm (bass-baritone), Chawa (soprano), Kajin (baritone) and Chabel (lyric tenor). Adahm has grown with creation and is no longer the attractive young man Chawa once fell for. "But then the time came. I just grew on and out of me grew man," he sings. He plunges fully into farming and animal husbandry, while Chawa remains stuck in a phase dominated by primary, hormonal drifts. In the opera, she acts like a sensual, horny woman who feels trapped in her circumstances.

Chabel experiences a revelation in which he discovers a higher power, bigger and older than Adahm, and names this being God. Thus, religion is born: the evolution from Homo Sapiens to Homo Religiosus. He demands a sacrifice and the construction of a temple (the sacrifice takes place by slitting the throat of a toy rabbit, embellished with stage blood). Chawa briefly finds meaning in this, but soon realizes that her situation remains unchanged. Adahm embraces Chabel’s religious vision but remains distant from Chawa. Kajin, on the other hand, fiercely resists. He does not desire a god but a wild, untamed woman.

When Chawa mistakes her son Chabel for the young Adahm in the dark, and Chabel is drawn to her, the situation escalates. Kajin, who has long desired his mother, sees in her the wild woman he craves. When Chabel is once again favored, Kajin loses control: he kills his brother and has sex with his mother. Chawa’s desires are unintentionally fulfilled, but the death of her favorite son overshadows everything.
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This tragedy brings Chawa and Adahm back together; they essentially begin humanity anew. Kajin is banished to the forest, where he continues his search for a woman.

Director Calixto Bieito focuses entirely on the sexual tensions and neuroses of Chawa and her sons. Bieito more often seeks extremes in his productions and often this flattens the richness and versatility of the source material. This is also the case here. Perhaps surprisingly, I found his Parsifal in Germany some years ago - in which he set the grail knights in a post-apocalyptic world, like a kind of Parsifal episode of The Walking Dead, one of the few productions in which his approach really worked (perhaps because he really went all-out there).
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The action largely takes place around a table, the stage for conflict and desires. Initially, the table is laden with fruits and flowers, but as the drama progresses, the scene becomes increasingly chaotic. (“Don’t play with your food,” is what your parents always said—but the first humans don’t care.)

Annette Dasch shines as Chawa, a woman driven by lust and frustration. Her acting, as always expressive, and singing make her a perfect fit for the role. She moves seductively across the table, while Adahm, played by bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen, remains stoic, focusing on his work—on his laptop. Ketelsen convincingly portrays the distant father, while his sons, initially dressed neatly in tuxedos, slowly lose control.
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Leigh Melrose as Kajin masterfully brings the role of the rejected child to life. In the Bible, his sacrifice is refused, while Chabel's is accepted. In the opera, it is the parents' stated preference for the gentle Chabel that drives him to anger. Along with dreamy and unworldly acting, John Osborn's impressive, lyrical singing makes him a perfectly cast Chabel. As far as I am concerned, the standout in a very strongly cast performance. That performance takes place on the front stage, with the orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Kwamé Ryan, placed behind a translucent cloth on the back stage. 

Die ersten Menschen is a fascinating opera that digs deep into human instincts and the primal history of humanity. The drama of the opera deliciously chafes against the drama of the daily news - a drama that is cold, unpleasant and disturbing - and slowly massages it away with a music whose tingling chromaticism, while certainly not shunning the grand gesture, has a pleasing sense of understatement. Music, art must be about something, always, and all the way now, it must have substance, it must be the real thing. And Stephan's opera has that. An opera that besides offering titillating, full-blooded drama has the added drama of a composer who saw the promise of everything he had left in him broken in the bud.

Die ersten Menschen, Rudi Stephan / Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam, 24 January 2025 

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra 
Conductor: Kwamé Ryan

Director: Calixto Bieito

​Adahm:Kyle Ketelsen
Chawa: Annette Dasch
Kajin:Leigh Melrose
Chabel:​John Osborn

Dracula, Nosferatu, Orlok. Everyone's favorite bloodsucker has been reincarnated once again. This time, in a film by Robert Eggers, who is fulfilling a lifelong dream by giving Murnau's century-old film a 21st-century update. Updates don’t necessarily mean improvements (as this computerage has made abundantly clear) but in this case, they don't have to. The unrelenting fascination with canonical (horror) cinema makes a new Nosferatu an event, and the curiosity paired with the excitement that accompanies it cannot be sufficiently valued, especially in these dreary times.

Nosferatu, phantom of the night, a symphony of horror, scourge of humanity, was brought to film over 100 years ago by director F.W. Murnau, screenwriter Henrik Galeen, and designer Albin Grau. The story can be considered familiar. The first cinematic adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula was a case of copyright theft. The creators attempted to obscure this by changing the names of the main characters: Dracula became Orlok, Jonathan Harker became Thomas Hutter, his wife Mina was renamed Ellen and the boss of Jonathan Harker, Peter Hawkins, merged with the psychiatric patient Renfield into the role of Knock. Stoker's widow wasn’t fooled and successfully had the film ordered out of circulation. She even managed to have the court mandate that all existing copies be destroyed. That effort, thankfully, failed—darkness be praised—and the rest is film history. Nosferatu may well be the most iconic horror film ever made, one that continues to capture the imagination to this day.

A film, or any work of art, generates its greatest power through the story the audiences can add to it themselves—when the film takes on a life of its own in the viewer’s mind. Murnau's film feeds this storytelling in ways few others do. The lack of sound and the gritty, high-contrast black-and-white visuals amplify the imagination, making the movie feel like found footage. With its documentary-like quality and the appearance of the actor with the perfect name, Max Schreck, Nosferatu almost looks like a real vampire caught on camera (a concept explored in Shadow of a Vampire, where Willem Dafoe portrays Schreck as an actual vampire). Nosferatu is definitive in its rawness—a silent film for which hundreds of soundtracks have since been composed, from classical symphonic ones to modern rock. Watching the film accompanied by live music remains a unique experience.

Werner Herzog was the first to venture into a remake. It was more of a free adaptation than a remake as he himself said. A tribute to the greatest film that had ever come out of Germany. With his remake, Herzog wanted to build a bridge to the grandfather of German cinema, Murnau. A bridge that necessarily skipped a generation because the generation of Herzog's potential film father(s) was tainted with a Nazi past.
 
In Herzog’s film, unencumbered by copyright issues, Orlok is once again Dracula, and Thomas Hutter is Jonathan Harker (his wife, however, is Lucy, Mina’s friend in Stoker’s novel who is notably absent from Murnau’s film, leaving her name vacant - or something like that). In Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani, Herzog finds a couple that is incredibly photogenic and, as a modern incarnation of Orlok and Ellen, refers to the era of silent film.

Herzog’s Nosferatu is a poetic meditation on isolation and decay. It doesn’t try to be a horror film. Kinski’s Dracula is a socially awkward figure, someone who has lost all social skills through centuries of isolation. Kinski’s vampire is menacing without ever trying to be scary. His haunting presence, combined with Herzog’s understated style, creates a profoundly unsettling experience. The film’s pale, chilling ending heightens this unease. Jonathan Harker’s wife sacrifices herself, as in Murnau’s version, to free the world from Nosferatu’s curse. But Herzog adds an epilogue: Jonathan himself, transformed into a vampire by Dracula’s bite, rides off into the horizon in daylight, suggesting that Nosferatu’s curse not only persists but has evolved into a more resilient form.

In the 21st century—an era where the light just won't break through—a creature of the night will find its natural habitat. Robert Eggers seems attuned to this. While his motivation leans more toward entertainment than catharsis, Eggers understands that the time is ripe for an “old-school gothic horror film that’s genuinely scary.” Eggers consciously places his version of Nosferatu within the tradition of vampire films sparked by the 1922 original. Drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as Hammer movies and the Mel Brooks spoof Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Eggers adds his own flair by adjusting and introducing key scenes. For instance, Knock’s death is altered: Hutter kills him with a stake through the heart, a moment where Knock seems to regain his sanity, realizing that his devotion to Orlok hasn’t secured him eternal life but left him as vulnerable as anyone else.
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Unlike Herzog, Eggers reverts to the names of the original. For the roles, he cast Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter. Nicholas Hoult is Thomas Hutter. (Hoult is no stranger to the Dracula repertoire; he was previously seen as Renfield in the film of the same name in which Nicolas Cage smirks his way through the role of Dracula.) Simon McBurney, theatre director with a creditable acting track record, is Knock and Willem Dafoe returns after Egger's previous film, The Lighthouse, as the doctor of occult affairs, Albin Eberhart Von Franz (the Van Helsing-role and yes, the name refers to Albin Grau). Bill Skarsgård is transformed beyond recognition into a monstrous Count Orlok.

The film is unmistakably a product of our time—a time in which buildup and proper tempo are often sacrificed for action and rapid editing. Despite the fact that Eggers demonstrated a strong sense of pacing in his previous films The Witch and The Lighthouse, Nosferatu too falls prey to the trend of keeping tension arcs short. Yet the film still feels overly long, mainly because it contains too many scenes and burdens its characters with too much (mediocre) dialogue. It seems as though the film fears its audience won’t understand it without everything being explained, leaving little to no room for ambiguity.
 
For the soundtrack, Eggers wanted to rely on the sound of instruments from the period in which the film is set—a (fictional) 19th-century Germany. No electronics, then. Composer Robin Carolan, who also collaborated with Eggers on The Northman, stays in the spirit of James Bernard, the soundtrack composer of many Hammer films. While the soundtrack didn’t particularly stand out while watching the film—it’s no Popol Vuh for Herzog’s Nosferatu—my appreciation for it grew after listening to it separately. It’s a beautiful symphonic score with enough dissonance to avoid excessive sweetness, although it could have used a bit more edginess in the final scene.

The visuals also reference romantic artworks. It looks stunning, and lovers of classic gothic horror will delight in it, but the film feels like a collection of trailers lacking a cohesive overarching tension arc. While it has plenty of atmosphere, it lacks buildup. Each scene feels like an elevator pitch that needs to make its point, evoke instant scares, and provide instant gratification. In Herzog’s version, for instance, the ship bringing Orlok/Dracula to Wisburg is shown in a mundane way, with the impending doom settling into the viewer’s mind through the preceding buildup. By contrast, Eggers shows us a wrecked ship with rats stranded on the harbor, immediately leading to the conclusion that the plague has arrived in Wisburg. It’s instant information without buildup. Herzog’s film draws us into a story with real people confronting supernatural evil. Eggers’ film, on the other hand, is a pressure cooker of instant hysteria where the connection between the human factor and the supernatural is insufficiently developed. In that pressure cooker, not only does the story fall apart, but so does the world in which it takes place. Herzog presents us with a world that feels scalable. We see Harker traveling through a landscape, arriving at an inn and castle, and when we follow him inside, we remain in the same world. Eggers’ world, however, breaks apart into isolated, enclosed spaces that have an artificial gloss on them. It can be considered the curse of many modern productions: even when computer-generated imagery is avoided—Eggers opted for practical effects like a real castle, real animals (wolves and rats!), and potato flakes as snow (a technique borrowed from a 1940s film)—post-production still makes the end result look like CGI. There, the tragedy of the filmmaker reverting to analogue sources and getting trapped in contemporary pixels manifests itself. In terms of visuals and direction, Nosferatu seems more inspired by Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula from 1992 than its predecessors from 1922 and 1979 (though it is by no means as bad as Coppola’s film, which looks beautiful but gives us actors who walk around like they’re failing an audition).

As Ellen Hutter, Lily-Rose Depp carries the weight of all the misfortune; she awakens Orlok from his centuries-long slumber. Eggers had her watch a series of films for inspiration for her role, including Ken Russell’s The Devils. And it shows. Depp portrays a woman gripped by melancholy—not the kind of pain that secretly feels good, but the 19th-century version: a state of deep depression. When her depressive episodes escalate into Exorcist-like hysteria, the supposed intensity becomes somewhat tiring. There’s room for beautiful and poignant reflections on Ellen's relationship with Orlok—on the allure of evil, on unfulfilled desires and vague fears seeking a dark outlet. However, the film doesn’t connect us to Ellen Hutter’s deeper psychology; it fails to explore her character’s layers. The film falls flat here.

Now Orlok is a flat character by nature. His motivations seem purely nihilistic. He comes across as someone obsessed with bureaucracy and formal agreements. He meticulously follows the process of buying a house, ensures that both Thomas and Ellen "consent" to her marriage to him, and has it confirmed in writing. This obsession with bureaucracy makes sense—it serves nobles and landowners exceptionally well. Deeds and contracts outlive people, and mastery of bureaucracy enhances power.
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However, Orlok’s betrayal of the pact he made with Knock reveals something crucial: Orlok doesn’t actually respect oaths or agreements. No two-way street here. For him, they are just means to subjugate others. His motivations are purely selfish—he’s driven by the desire to consume, spread chaos and disease, and feed on Ellen. He doesn’t even want to make Ellen immortal or his eternal companion. As a vampire, Orlok shows no interest in creating legions of followers. The rats spreading the plague are merely byproducts of his presence, not tools for a greater goal like conquering the world. His focus is entirely on consumption, particularly of Ellen—even if it leads to his own destruction.

It’s only at the end that Eggers finds poetry within the horror, and it is there that the viewing experience gains depth. The ending is a stunning modern representation of the archetypal image of the Beauty and the Beast, Death and the Maiden. It’s grotesque and baroque—exactly what my gothic horror-loving heart desires. Without beauty, no horror and drama. Ellen sacrifices herself, and Orlok ultimately goes along with it. This makes their final, intimate moment a macabre duet—a necrophilic dance of death. It carries the chilling essence of Richard Strauss' (or Oscar Wilde's) Salome, a scene where horror is sustained by beauty, providing the film with a grotesquely beautiful and harrowing final chord.

Nosferatu is a film with flaws, that much is clear. With its adrenaline-fueled direction it’s like Solti conducting Der Ring, made to impress instantly but something that lacks flow--it doesn’t breathe. And for film, even the ones about undead bloodsuckers, the same rule applies as for music—it must breathe (like a Slayer song or a Bruckner symphony - you have this website for these kinds of comparisons, you're welcome).
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Nosferatu is a film that struggles to balance style and substance. It’s a film with stunning imagery and great moments (the scene where Orlok welcomes Hutter into his castle is wonderfully dark and intense) without becoming a great film. But know that this observation, along with all preceding comments, stems from a love for and engagement with the gothic horror genre. It’s wonderful that films like this are being made. And it’s wonderful that this gothic-romantic horror work of art frees us, if only for the duration of the film, from the everyday news, a world filled with real horrors and real monsters.