About the work
Der Ring des Polykrates is a comic opera in one act by Erich Wolfgang Korngold to a libretto by Leo Feld, reworked by the composer's father, Julius Korngold. It drew on a comedy by Heinrich Teweles that itself alludes to Schiller's ballad The Ring of Polycrates. Bruno Walter conducted the premiere on 28 March 1916 at the Munich Court Theatre, on the same double bill as Korngold's opera Violanta.
Plot
The contented conductor Wilhelm Arndt is celebrating his newlywed happiness with Laura when his envious friend Peter Vogel, invoking Schiller's ballad, suggests Wilhelm secure his good fortune with a sacrifice and question Laura about her past. Laura meets his sudden suspicion calmly, and in the end the schemer Peter Vogel himself becomes the sacrifice that restores the couple's harmony.
Cultural significance
Too short to fill an evening by itself, the one-act opera was always performed alongside Korngold's Violanta, with which it shared its premiere on 28 March 1916. The double premiere of these two early works cemented the eighteen-year-old Korngold's reputation as a compositional prodigy.