Lulu, Alban Berg’s hauntingly mysterious opera in a new production by Dmitri Tcherniakov, has been one of the major events of the 2014/2015 Bayerische Staatsoper season : an ideal setting for conductor Kirill Petrenko first-ever video recording! A sensuous and impenetrable opera, Berg’s masterpiece depicts the burning and sometimes bestial intensity of human relationships through the figure of Lulu, the true femme fatale, bearer of an enigma that haunts us way beyond the end of the opera. Venenous, sibylline, deathly for who approaches her, the dangerous Lulu destroys the established and bourgeois order she evolves in, carrying away with her all certainty, just like the audacious and demanding musical language Berg invented to give form to this unreachable character. Frank Wedekind’s work proved indeed to be an extremely fertile ground for the dodecaphonic composer’s imagination, and gave birth to one of the most singular and ambitious work of art of the twentieth century. With the privilege of a dream cast, gathering Berg’s best interprets, this new production of Lulu is conducted by Kirill Petrenko, and staged by Dmitri Tcherniakov. A visionary genius considered as the contemporary stage "enfant terrible", it is with a shattering realism that he directs those characters, hostages to their own passions and darkest fantasies, and reveals the complexity of this great human and social tragedy. Marlis Petersen is Lulu, a role she was then singing for the ninth time, and which awarded her, for this production, the title of "singer of the year" by German magazine Opernwelt.

Many operas, tragic in nature, leave an audience deeply affected. But Wozzeck holds a special place: its "man's inhumanity to man" and "society and the system will destroy you" messages go straight to the heart and leave us feeling dejected. The recently-released 1970 film of the opera from Hamburg by Rolf Liebermann perfectly captured the work's bleakness and nihilism, and I suspect that for sheer atmosphere and honesty to the text it never will be bettered. But for an almost unbearable, ghastly view of life, madness, and uncaring, this present production, from the stage of Barcelona's Teatre del Liceu--directed by bad-boy Calixto Bieito--will hereafter be the one to beat.

This isn't one of Bieito's juvenile-delinquent ravings like his Ballo with the conspirators on toilets; rather, he just takes a life-deadening score and plot and degrades the characters even further by placing them in a sunless underground world of the future. The life-is-pointless theme remains, but now life is made up not only of heartlessness, but filth and human innards, no natural light, and necrophilia. It's amazing that the audience doesn't go crazy the way Wozzeck does; indeed, near the opera's close, naked cast members, covered in God-knows-what sort of excremental grime, walk into the audience, zombie-like.

We are, I believe, in an oil refinery or petro-chemical plant (Wozzeck is no longer a soldier, just a lowly employee with the captain as Foreman), with acres of twisting pipes looking for all the world like the intestines the doctor rips out of the dead bodies he then cuddles up to. Wozzeck and Marie live in a fluorescently illuminated box with a patch of green shrubbery that Wozzeck tends until it, too, gets destroyed and leaves the scene lifeless. The Drum Major is a local entertainer dressed as either an Elvis- or Elton John-impersonator that Marie sees as an alternative to the dreary slime around her; her child, invariably in a fetal position (though he's big enough to be 10 years old) or on his omnipresent hobby horse, has open sores, is bald, and must breathe through an oxygen mask. (Others in the cast are similarly afflicted.)

Pianos, Marie and Wozzeck's living quarters, other spaces, descend into the playing area in front of the piping; an area of the stage will be illuminated to represent, say, the tavern, while the remainder goes dark. The scenes in the tavern are wild, the Idiot deformed and screaming, with television director Pietro D'Agostino's close-ups horrendous. The turning point comes in the third scene of the second act (although the opera is performed uninterrupted, in one act) when the Doctor, Captain, and Wozzeck meet on the street. The Captain dances insanely as the Doctor does sexual push-ups on the dead body of a woman he has carried onto the scene. Wozzeck, thoroughly confused and trying to get away from them, goes mad. He seems suddenly to realize that the only way to conform is to be as lunatic as they are; his murder of Marie, as they sit on a pipe in a world without a moon, is a thing to do and seems undriven by passion. He shoves her into a pipe drain from which dirty water has been spewing and climbs in there himself in the opera's penultimate scene.

We must be grateful that Sebastian Weigle, the Liceu's music director, leads a reading of the score that is an antidote to the filth in front of him. Weigle takes every opportunity to express Berg's lyricism rather than his harshness. (I was reminded of Richard Strauss' admonition to the orchestra at the premiere of Elektra to play softly because the music on the page was already so loud.) One of the production's real mistakes is Bieito's decision to keep the stage lit and the action going during Berg's all-important orchestral interludes. Berg's transitions are descriptive enough and need no distractions; thanks to Weigle and his orchestra they almost have their full effect. The overwhelming interlude before the opera's last scene is beautifully played; Bieito's intrusions upon it scarcely matter. And there are moments of such tenderness between Marie and her child that humanity does creep through. In addition, Weigle's cast never overplays the Sprechgesang; there is always "gesang" present with Wozzeck and Marie, so we can continue to feel what softness has been left them. The orchestra's control of dynamics, from Berg's pppppp to fffff, can take your breath away.

The cast is remarkable. Franz Hawlata, all-too-human as Wozzeck, has a fine baritone, his pitched speaking as impressive as his more melodic work. He roams the last third of the opera filthy and shirtless, looking like someone on a terrible precipice, which is just what he is. He never breaks character. Angela Denoke, in red overalls like the other workers, has the full compass of the role of Marie both vocally and dramatically--so much a victim, so uncomprehending of what is going on around her, wanting just a bit more out of life. Hubert Delamboye's Captain is terrifying, his falsetto like a train whistle. Johann Tilli's Doctor is not someone you'd want to meet on a dark street; his cannibalism seems the least of his issues. David Kuebler as Andres sings stentorianly and with misguided passion; Reiner Goldberg's Drum Major is glitter and no-substance, sort of an even-dumber and more treacherous Siegfried. And once Steven Cole's Fool opens his mouth and starts wailing, there's no turning back.

My first choice of video Wozzecks remains the 1971 film; this version is startling in its unpleasantness, and as such becomes a work of art, albeit a work hard to come to terms with. Perhaps it's a misreading--maybe Bieito is telling us that our environment can make us insane, and that isn't quite Berg's point. But it is ferocious in its persuasiveness, the opera is superbly served musically, and you won't forget it.

--Robert Levine
FORMAT: All Formats
REGIONS: All Regions
PICTURE FORMAT: 16:9
LENGTH: 129 Mins
SOUND: DTS 5.0 SURROUND/ LPCM STEREO
SUBTITLES: EN/FR/DE/ES/IT/CA
NO OF DISCS: 1

Wozzeck: Franz Hawlata
Marie: Angela Denoke
Drum Major: Reiner Goldberg
Margret: Vivian Tierney
Doctor: Johann Tilli
Captain: Hubert Delamboye
Andres: David Kuebler

Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu
Vivaldi Chorus – IPSI – Petits Cantors de Catalunya
Musical Director: Sebastian Weigle
Stage Director: Calixto Bieito

Plus
Documentary, including interviews with Sebastian Weigle & Calixto Bieito

Berg: Lulu Suite, Der Wein & Lyrischen Suite

This was the first ever recording of Wozzeck, and Mitropoulos's handling of the score has seldom been equalled, let alone surpassed. The sheer fire and passion of his reading are remarkable.

This was the first ever recording of Wozzeck, preceding Karl Bohm's sumptuous DG account by 14 years. As the only mono Wozzeck in existence, therefore, it is the least adequately recorded (the orchestra is at times somewhat recessed) and it has long been famous for the conspicuous inaccuracy of most of its cast: the Doctor sings only an approximation of his written notes most of the time, and both Marie and the Captain rewrite some passages quite startlingly. But listening to it again on these beautifully presented, carefully remastered CDs I was astonished at how little these flaws matter; indeed Mitropoulos's handling of the score has seldom been equalled, let alone surpassed. The sheer fire and passion of his reading are remarkable, but so is his vivid response to the detail and the colour of Berg's score. Again and again he seems more aware than most conductors of precisely why this or that scene uses a particular musical form or dance rhythm. And he shows at times an astonishing boldness: it was decidedly risky, with singers and players quite unfamiliar with the idiom, to take the fugue in Act 2 scene 2 as fast as Mitropoulos does, but the sense of cruelty as Doctor and Captain goad Wozzeck with Marie's infidelity and as the one reliable thing in his confused world crumbles is as intensely horrible and pitiful as Berg obviously intended it to be.

But I would hate to give the impression that this is a superbly conducted Wozzeck let down by substandard singing. Mack Harrell, who stands out for his commendable accuracy, is an understated Wozzeck but not, I think, an under-acted one. His is not a familiar name now, but his inflexion of the role of Nick Shadow (in Stravinsky's first recording of The Rake's Progress) and of the beautiful lines of Virgil Thomson's Blake Songs are etched in my memory; so is his finely detailed portrait of Wozzeck as a fundamentally decent man driven to murder and suicide by a desperation that he cannot express. He was a singer of rare intelligence and sensitivity. Eileen Farrell, for all her occasional lapses, is a sympathetic, often moving Marie, and although Ralph Herbert is a conscientious rather than a vivid Doctor, 'vivid' is a positive understatement for Joseph Mordino's Captain. He is often inaccurate as to pitch but his rhythms are precise and his acting needle-sharp. Indeed it is hard at times to believe that this is a concert performance: the oppressive atmosphere of the barracks, the hectic whirl of the dance scenes, the horrifyingly abrupt violence of the murder are as gripping as in any live recording in a theatre.

Erwartung was also a firstever recording, made in a studio that sounds rather airless because of the close focus on Dorothy Dorow's pleasing but small voice. Her efforts are little short of heroic (she sings fewer wrong notes than most exponents of the role), but the emotional range of her reading is perhaps inevitably rather narrow. Mitropoulos's understandable reluctance to obliterate her with orchestral exclamations leads to a lyrical but small-scale reading, the work's extremes unexplored. The Krenek, however (recorded, astonishingly, on the same day as Erwartung: a total of 45 minutes of hugely demanding music), is quite a discovery: an extended and passionately expressive elegy on the death of Webern, performed with intense eloquence. It is not otherwise available on CD and it adds very considerably to the value of Mitropoulos's historic, far from outdated Wozzeck.

-- Gramophone [2/1998]

Berg: Wozzeck, Op. 7 (Sung in Italian) & Violin Concerto

Boulez is not a 'tender' conductor; nor would he wish to be found one. But, as I said before, again and again he provides a revelation of the 'meaning' of a particular passage—simply by playing it exactly as it stands: not so simply, by his apparent ability to convey the intentions of the composer's creative mind. Two final examples: the hollow bang on the bass drum in the second scene, during Wozzeck's hallucination; and the celesta/harp trickle, with other motifs exactly poised against it, while Marie in Scene 3 falls into a reverie. Each tells marvellously.

-- Gramophone [2/1967, reviewing the LP release]

-------------------------------------


Berry [is] perhaps the best Wozzeck on record... [Boulez] is very good at nail-biting suspense and lucid clarification of complex textures...

-- Gramophone [2/1989]

The 2002 production of Berg's Lulu by Richard jones is generally agreed to be one of the best things to come from troubled English National Opera in recent years. Chandos has done everyone a favour by transferring its 2005 revival lock, stock and smoking revolver from the opera house to the studio...This is important for several reasons. Lulu can seem forbidding to the uninitiated. Its amoral characters, its sordid plot, its enigmatic anti-heroine, its complex (and masterful) formal design: all these aspects repel some as much as they attract others. Yet cabaret burlesque is as integral to the opera's make-up as high operatic tragedy. Paul Daniel and the Chandos engineers don't let us forget it. Piano, saxophone and vibraphone get the prominence they deserve...Richard Stokes has rendered Wedekind's demotic text aptly and brilliantly...For Lulu in the raw, a Rosenkavalier with no underwear, I'll take this.
- Peter Quantrill, THE GRAMOPHONE

Chandos presents the English language recording premiere of 'Wozzeck', Berg's powerful and fatalistic tragedy, now regarded as one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century opera. Paul Daniel and the Philharmonia Orchestra receive consistently excellent reviews in this series, and are aided by a superb cast and theatrical Chandos sound. Recorded in: Watford Colosseum 14-18 July 2002 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Michael Common (Assistant)

When Alban Berg attended the first production of Georg Buchner’s play Woyzeck, he immediately knew that he wanted to base an opera off of the story line. His opera, Wozzeck, was composed between the years 1914 and 1922, and received its debut performance in 1925. The dark storyline centers around the soldier Wozzeck, who travels through a callous and at times sadistic world that he doesn’t understand. He is tortured with medical experiments, ridiculed by his captain, and his lover, Marie, betrays him. He becomes a murderer and eventually secures his own demise. Renowned stage director Andreas Homoki brilliantly creates this dark and mysterious world, which explores the thin line between the unfathomable and ridiculous. Christian Gerhaher’s dramatic subtlety and vocal prowess is breathtaking in the title role, alongside the equally impressive Gun-Brit Barkim as Marie.

Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, which premiered at Lindenoper/ Berlin in 1925, is regarded as one of the key music compositions of the 20th century and an essential work in any connoisseur’s collection. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck, which was left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's play on May 5, 1914, and knew at once that he wanted to base an opera on it. From the fragments of unordered scenes left by Büchner, Berg selected fifteen to form a compact structure of three acts with five scenes each. He adapted the libretto himself. On this release, the Frankfurt Opera, under the baton of Sebastian Weigle, delivers a razor-sharp and exciting interpretation. With Audun Iversen and Claudia Mahnke in the main roles the recording shows an ideal cast.

Vocal Recital: Kuhse, Hannelore - WAGNER, R. / STRAUSS, R. /

BERG, A.: Violin Concerto / 3 Pieces from the Lyric Suite /

Classical Music

The nuptials of eros and thanatos unveil their irresistible attraction in Alban Berg’s unfinished ‘Lulu’, based on the work of German playwright Frank Wedekind, considered one of the major works of the 20th c. in general, and of opera in particular. + Krzysztof Warlikowski delves the innermost depths of the human psyche and chooses to tackle "Lulu" as a deeply moving requiem ‘to the memory of an angel’. + Featured in the title role is Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan. + Paul Daniel conducts the Orchestre symphonique de la Monnaie. + “…a genuinely fresh take on Alban Berg’s work.” (Financial Times)

Classical Music

This final disc in our trilogy of the chamber music of Schoenberg and his disciples is dedicated to the works for piano solo. Covering almost all of Schoenberg's output in his genre - including two fragments never previously recorded - the programme also includes Alban Berg's Sonata No.1, composed at the age of 23 under the influence of his teacher's Chamber Symphony. There is also a first recording of a fragment by Berg, originally intended for a sonata but later used almost unchanged in his opera Wozzeck. The previous two instalments in this series have received great acclaim. 'An impeccable balance between precision and expressivity' the critic in Le Monde de la musique wrote in reviewing 'Schoenberg: Works for Violin and Piano' (CD1407) and Klassik Heute gave 'Schoenberg/Webern Chamber Music (CD1467) top marks: 10/10/10. Eminent pianist Roland Pöntinen participated on both of these discs, and now he closes the trilogy with this solo programme.

Ninety-one years and a turn of century later, Alban Berg's String Quartet Op. 3 no longer shocks as it once did, but rather sounds more and more like an accessible piece of finely wrought chamber music. That's not to say it contains stretches of "Hum-um-umable melody" (to quote Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along), but with careful and repeated listening the ear discerns motifs and harmonic patterns where formerly there seemed naught but noise. Such revelations are greatly aided by the Leipzig String Quartet's generously romantic approach both to this and to the Lyric Suite. Its warm legato and passionate phrasing humanize and romanticize Berg's highly personal masterpieces, both created in connection with love affairs. This is in marked contrast to the Galimir Quartet's strident and angular performances on Vanguard, which place Berg more firmly in the epoch of the Second Viennese School. But the Leipzigers are capable of much fierce energy too, especially in the more explosive moments of the Lyric Suite, which they play with fearless alacrity.


The disc also includes Webern's brief (even for him) Three Pieces for String Quartet, featuring the ethereal singing of Christiane Oelze in the second piece, a setting of one of the composer's poems. At two minutes and ten seconds, it's over before you realize it, but even the much longer Berg works have this effect, thanks to the stunning Leipzig Quartet performances, recorded in top-drawer sound by MDG.
--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Based on real events and drawing on Georg Büchner’s revolutionary play, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck turns a grimly tragic narrative of violence and murder into one of the most powerful and original operas of the 20th century. Berg’s uncompromising portrayal of brutality and madness generated much controversy, but the significance of Wozzeck was soon recognised; its compelling lyrical expansiveness, large-scale dramatic gestures and remarkable musical structures producing music of overwhelming emotional intensity. The Financial Times declared this to be "a beautiful, moving, engrossing production… this is a consummate Wozzeck, blending clarity, lyricism, compassion and crushing force."

-----

REVIEW:

Marc Albrecht embeds Wozzeck within a lineage of lyrically sprung, dance-driven operas from Weber’s Oberon to Der Rosenkavalier, taking in Lortzing and Die Fledermaus along the way. The singing is accomplished with style, especially the astonishingly secure Captain of Marcel Beekman and the engagingly sinister comic turn of Willard White as the Doctor. Even were it not among the most beautifully played and sung accounts on record and film, this Wozzeck would command attention for Krzysztof Warlikowski’s staging.

– Gramophone

Agneta Eichenholz, Michael Volle, Klaus Florian Vogt, and Jennifer Larmore star in this Royal Opera production of the Berg opera conducted by Antonio Pappano and directed by Christof Loy.

Perhaps it's the passage of time, or it's simply the New Zealand String Quartet's embracing, unselfconscious style and illuminating technique, but the atonal sounds of Alban Berg's String Quartet Op. 3 sure seem a lot closer to late-19th century romanticism than they did 40 or so years ago when listeners in my generation first paid attention to Berg's music. And since the work was written almost 100 years ago, that's as it should be, as is the fact that it's now much easier to get past the larger and still-challenging sonic picture to appreciate the inner textural and motivic details.

Of course, our ability to really hear and follow what's going on depends on the performance--and these four musicians may be the best on disc (surpassing the Leipzig and Pražák quartets) in all-important matters of linear clarity, dynamic shading, and sustaining the developmental tension throughout Op. 3's two long, difficult movements. In the Lyric Suite, ensemble unanimity and precision in the increasingly fast odd-numbered movements is critical, and the New Zealanders not only accomplish this but also never forget the intrinsic drama and emotional intensity that haunts this music, especially impressive in the Allegro misterioso and Adagio appassionato movements at the heart of the work.

Indeed, as you listen to these works afresh, you not only marvel at the individual players' virtuosity, but you also have to appreciate that the relatively warm yet pleasingly "edgy" quality to the sound and the oneness of spirit in the interpretations come from the highest-order functioning of the well-integrated collective parts of a mature, vital body--that is, a string quartet that's been together a long time, each member sharing life and breath in the music they make together. This is one reason we listen to the great string quartets--and besides the chance to hear Berg's fascinating and formidable scores again, that's the reason you shouldn't miss this extraordinary recording.

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Natanael Berg (1879 - 1957) studied at the Stockholm Conservatory and was a Swedish Army veterinarian who, as a freelance musician also composed music in a Late Romantic style. Natanael Berg's colorful music is the subject of an on-going project on the CPO label.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Alban Berg left behind a wonderful group of songs. These early songs were unpublished during Berg's lifetime. They deserve a serious listening. This album presents these songs in the excellent performances they so richly deserve. Steven Kimbrough is an internationally known operatic, concert, and musical theater singer (baritone), and recording artist, who has performed on the professional stages of North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. He has been described as a remarkable singer, with a cultivated, easily flowing baritone of fine quality and a rare command of words and rhythms. (The New Yorker) Margaret Jackson is a professionally trained opera singer who has traveled all over the world. She is also an expert in musicology and Western music history.

Classical Music

These arrangements for string orchestra of works by Alban Berg take their cue from Berg himself: he arranged three of the six movements of the Lyric Suite for string orchestra; the Dutch composer Theo Verby arranged the other three. The CD includes an arrangement of Berg’s Piano Sonata for strings by Wijnand van Klaveren. Ernst Kovacic arranged Berg’s early works especially for this recording. The arrangements chart Berg’s development as a composer, from prentice pieces composed under the tutelage of Schoenberg to the rich, mature style of one of his masterpieces, the Lyric Suite, written to express an impassioned and illicit love. Ernst Kovacic is one of Austria’s best-known violinists as well as a conductor. Among the composers who have written works for him are Krenek, Holloway, Gruber and Schwertsik. Ernst Kovacic and the NRM Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra’s previous Toccata release of music by Ernst Krenek (TOCC 0199), was received with universal enthusiasm, the reviewer for Fanfare writing: ‘This Toccata Classics CD is a model of fine production values…(and) magisterial performances…an absolute must for Krenek fanciers’.

REVIEW:

The Lyric Suite is played complete. It gains from the extra players, not only in obvious richness of sound, but in nuances of phrasing. The arrangements accomplish a broad range of expressive tonecolor, with nearly every conceivable string effect on display. In the trickier parts where there are several extremely chromatic legato lines playing against one another, they play accurately and in tune. The album is a curiosity for a limited audience, but they’ll be happy.

-- American Record Guide

Berg's masterful and thought-provoking opera tells the gripping story of the rise and fall of an alluring, destructive but vulnerable woman, culminating in her death at the hands of Jack the Ripper. Christof Loy's austere, minimalist production allows the complexities of the drama to unfold through the sumptuous, taut beauty of the score. Agneta Eichenholz and Michael Volle lead an all-star cast under Antonio Pappano. Recorded in High Definition and true surround sound.

Lulu : Agneta Eichenholz
Dr Schön/Jack the Ripper: Michael Volle
Alwa: Klaus Florian Vogt
Countess Geschwitz: Jennifer Larmore
Prince/Manservant/Marquis: Philip Langridge
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Conductor: Antonio Pappano
Director: Christof Loy
Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, in June 2009

Extra features:
Cast gallery
Interview with Antonio Pappano
Interview with Agneta Eichenholz

“It is immaculately rehearsed and executed – one doesn't often see opera acted with such freedom and honesty and absence of flummery. And its unsparing analytic clarity forces one to confront the bitter truth about Lulu's inner life and the corruption and idiocy of the men who are infatuated by her. … Antonio Pappano's electrifying conducting is razor-sharp in the manner of Pierre Boulez, and the orchestral playing is magnificent. … Singing with an extraordinary grace and insouciance, Eichenholz manages to make this monster chillingly real and hauntingly beautiful.”
The Telegraph

Regions: All Regions
Picture Format: R 16:9 Anamorphic
Sound Type: 2.0 LPCM & 5.1 DTS Digital

Classical Music