Customer Reviews

Berg: Lulu; Wozzeck

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I received the LPs of both of these recordings in 1973 or 1974 for my birthday (I was 13 or 14 at the time), and I grew up loving them dearly (if can "love" such works). To this day, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau will always be Wozzeck Gerhard Stolze will always be the Captain as far as I'm concerned. Unfortunately, the Lulu recording has been superseded by versions with Cerha's completion of the 3rd act (the best of which remains Boulez's classic 1979 [?] recording). But the entire set is worth it to get this classic Wozzeck.

I remember when Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg were spoken of as the New Viennese School and compared to Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Seriously. From our present standpoint, it is impossible to understand how much influence these three composers had in the mid-twentieth century. These two operas continue to be performed and through them Berg has become the most widely remembered of the three.

Scholars have analyzed these works extremely closely and have discovered all kinds of symbolic patterns in the notes. For example, the music occurring around Marie as she dies seems rather chaotic, yet one scholar has shown that the music consists of ten fragments of music heard from and around her earlier in the opera. So, her life is passing before her as she dies.

There is always a debate about how much of this deep meaning one can actually hear and it does vary for each listener. This kind of discussion goes on in all the arts, but is particularly so in music because it is the most abstract of the arts. How abstract and how removed from the surface can any "meaning" be and still be heard? This was a discussion we had many times in music school and I have met no more than a very few who convinced me they could actually hear this deeply (and this is more than recognizing a given row or its transformation or hearing the most fleeting tonalities in atonal works).

For me, just as some of the ultra late romantic become somewhat over composed with a level of detail that seems to be there for its own sake, some of this minutiae is like going to a restaurant for a meal and being given an essay about a photograph of a painting of a pork chop. It may be interesting, informative, and even beautiful, but you still leave hungry.

"Wozzeck" and "Lulu" are powerful and affecting works. They do sound much more like highly chromatic, but tonal works than the abstractions of Webern. "Lulu" is the more severe and, well, bleak of the two. I have heard more than a few praise these works for telling the truth about human life and getting to the true center of the human heart. To me, they seem more like artworks that were above all anti-bourgeois and seem proud of that stance. They seem to invoke not only the materialist views of the world of Marx, but also of Freud, and other now long forgotten apostles of deterministic thought. Is it possible to still see these works eighty years on as modern? They are as much prisoners of their time as are any other opera and less transcendent than I expect great works of art to be.

Franz Wozzeck is a powerless man who has a child out of wedlock with a woman named Marie. He subjects himself to crackpot scientific experiments with a Doctor for a bit of extra money for Marie and their son. Marie feels oppressed by the social stigma of being an unwed mother, but also has eyes for other men. She is particularly attracted to a Drum Major who looks so wonderfully masculine, but is really a mere surface of a person. She has an affair with the Drum Major, which Wozzeck discovers. Since Wozzeck is already teetering on the edge of sanity from his impotence and the experiments, he falls off and stabs Marie after she tells him that she would rather be stabbed than beaten. He leaves her body and tosses the knife in a pond. Later, crazed even more deeply by guilt, he goes into the pond after the knife and drowns. The last moment of the play involves Marie's and Wozzeck's orphan at play and running off the stage oblivious that he is alone in the world.

So, is this the true heart of us all? Is that last moment poignant, sharp irony on the human condition, or mere kitsch? I mean, dealing with the world view of this drama might benefit from as much detachment and irony as you can bring to it.

"Lulu" is even harsher. She is married to a professor of medicine who has a heart attack when he sees her with a painter he has commissioned to paint her portrait. She marries the painter at the urging of another doctor, who is engaged to another, with whom Lulu has had a long term love affair (such as love is in this work). Finally, the doctor understands that the painter really is blind to Lulu's true nature and tells him of her past. He kills himself. Under threat the doctor marries Lulu. She then takes up with a Countess who is enamored of her. Lulu ends up killing him with a revolver he has given her. She is arrested and sentenced to prison.

However, the countess arranges to take her place in prison to aid Lulu's escape. The Countess, the doctor's son, and an athlete help her escape abroad. Lulu then ends up with a wealthy man who ends up being a pimp and sells her to Cairo.

While the opera was incomplete at Berg's early death at fifty, the outline and sketch let us know that she is living in London with the doctor's son and the athlete. When the Countess arrives without money, Lulu is reduced to becoming a streetwalker. She goes through a series of clients who are the musical reincarnations of her various husbands. One of them kills the doctor's son, and the last kills both Lulu and the Countess, since he is Jack the Ripper (!).

The music is powerful and worth knowing because it is so personal to Berg and works its magic quite well. However, I have been at a symphonic concert when the Lulu Suite has been played and seem people get up and leave because they find it so harsh and intense.

Berg was indeed a major composer of the twentieth century. He cannot be merely dismissed. If you want to understand the serious art of that century you must come to terms with these works. You don't have to love them, but you cheat yourself if you don't know them at least a bit. Certainly, the morality of these operas, shocking in their time, is roughly equal to the "normal" behavior in any two episodes of "Friends" and "Law and Order". So, it must be the music that continues to affect people so strongly.

These recordings by Karl Böhm are masterfully done with great sound and solid singing. Some would prefer a different style of Sprechstimme (the half-singing) done here, but I find it appropriately chilling with the singing voice sliding around above the simultaneously sounding singing voice. I have no idea how it is done, but it sounds wonderfully insane.

I had this recording of Berg's "Wozzeck" in the 1960s. I think I was 14. I remember the performance as being one of the greatest I'd ever heard (of anything). I'd rank it with Furtwangler's "Tristan" (which knocked me out, also!) The singing of Evelyn Lear and Fischer-Deskau is magnificent; they have real chemistry, also, something rare in opera. A cast and performance made in heaven. Ranks with the Boulez version.

This opera has become mythic in the world of the opera because it deals with a subject that is outrageous and frankly immoral. It starts like a circus with the presentation of the menagerie by a master of ceremonies, the most beastlike beast being the woman, Lulu of course.
This woman is a femme fatale so common in the clichés of the Belle Epoque from the Eiffel Tower to just before the Black Friday. She is an easy woman, not really a prostitute, at least at the beginning. A woman who wants to be free and finds her freedom in the love, meaning sex of course and derangement of the mind, she inspires in men around her and she has no limits, no sense either. She is absolutely crazy in her hunger for victims falling to her sex appeal. Even a Prince is caught but she cannot choose and runs away to one more and one more and one more. Some actually die along the way and she becomes the beast to be hunted and tracked down. The police is coming. She is helped out and suggested to disappear in Egypt or locked up in a house for the sole pleasure of one man who would cover the trip or pay for the refuge. She refuses in the name of her freedom in a way. Then we follow her descent into hell that is represented by the last three men she will get. A dealer in religious goods that has lost God. A black man clearly called a N**** (sorry for the word but such characters were common in European culture in that period due to the colonialization of Africa and the still pending experience of nazi racism) in the libretto and the opera, and finally the anachronism of all centuries, Jack the Ripper who will of course rip her up and finish her up forever. But what is most interesting in this opera is the complete transformation of the role of music.
A turnaround seems to have taken place in the music as well as in the opera in these 1930s. The music is no longer a "decoration", a beautiful virtuosity, which it became at the end of the Middle Ages and with the Renaissance. It does not go back to the religious finality it had before of expressing the divine beauty of God's creation and God's teaching or message. But it is not either any more some entertaining element that had to please the senses as represented in the evolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. It has become part of the plot and the libretto. An opera is all sensory because it is synesthetic but this synesthesia is expressed by the merging of the various levels of the opera: the music, the singing, the language, the meaning, the plot, and of course the stage production. Music is not there to embellish the scene, or to enable the singers to glow and shine. The music builds the density of the plot, of the opera. The "instrumental and vocal" music is only part of the vast all-mediatic and all sensory music of a modern opera from plot to stage.
The end comes from Lulu's own hands. Lulu introduces Jack the Ripper as her latest street conquest and she negotiates her deal or trick with him but she is a novice and Jack is actually paid by her for the business that is in no way shady at this moment but a pure suicide or execution. A complete reversal. She takes him to the bedroom. The Countess then sings the dirge that announces Lulu's death that comes after her four "nein" and her death-cry. Jack comes out and washes his hands, like Pilate in another situation. The Countess closes the story with a call to Lulu the angel, which reminds us of her commitment just before Lulu's death to the rights of women. This opera then becomes an archetype by this very story.
Aren't women who want to be free reduced to prostitution and death? Is the future of women's rights in the fake freedom these prostitutes represent? Is the end always death in the hands of some perverse sex addict? Can such a woman only bring death and ruin to the men who love her? Can she only satisfy murderers like Jack the Ripper?
And the music builds the whole story. The contradictory tendencies, interpretations, the play in the play. What we see - voyeurs that we are - is not what it means. Life is a stage on which human beings strut and play their parts. But music on the stage turns the actors into actors of themselves, twofold, double, dual actors or marionettes that are playing a mental play inside the superficial visible play, and that mental play is revealed by the music and the singing. The music reveals the second depth of the play.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

This review applies to Wozzeck only. The Lulu recording is okay only...missing the Cerha third act (which hadn't been written yet) and with a soprano who cannot seem to manage the cruel role...

Now to Wozzeck: Boehm conducts everything as if it were Strauss (whether it is Wagner, Mozart, whatever): lush, a sort of "dancing" feel...sweetness, etc... He even makes Wozzeck, a violently atonal anguish-fest, sound mellow to my ears (at least as much as is possible with this opera) and really, really beautiful, I can't stop listening to this recording. Really accessible if you have had trouble appreciating Wozzeck in the past. The singers are lighter voiced Mozartean and Straussian singers as well...Lear doesn't quite have the heft that Maries usually have, but she is more detailed and lyrical than most...FiDi is also a light voiced and refined Wozzeck...too refined in some ways. He sounds really intelligent and ironic even in the first scene--Wozzeck is supposed to be a bit of a lump. But all the singers have exceptionally clear diction in this version...unusual for this difficult music that stretches the limits of a singers vocal range. You can really hear every word. The sound is excellent...detailed and full, better than a lot of digital recordings. I recommend this Wozzeck.

NB, this review deals with "Wozzeck" only - I've yet to hear the Lulu recording; furthermore, that work at this time is almost unknown to me.

Having received this recording as a gift very recently, I find myself comparing it to Abbado's DVD version as well as (to a lesser extent) Cambreling's DVD and von Dohnanyi's Decca/London CD recordings. [If Abbado's DGG CD recording is derived from the DVD of the same performance, then it can naturally be included in the comparison here... Otherwise, it's through this recording that I came to first be acquainted with this opera over 21 years ago.]

People have written and spoken about Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as being too poetic for the rôle of Wozzeck, making him seem too intelligent (perhaps relative to that part in Act I, Scene 1, where the Captain teases him after tricking him about a gale blowing from South-North - yet he's simply acknowledging the Captain's speaking {"indeed, Sir Captain"}!). Still, it's precisely that poetic side that for me helps humanise this unlucky character and makes Herr Fischer-Dieskau a standout on this recording to the point that nobody else can compare with him in this rôle. That, combined with his warmth of tone and sympathetic characterisation of Wozzeck - for me - carries the day, even over Franz Grundheber's excellent effort for Abbado and Wächter's work for von Dohnanyi. [Neither of these other two gentlemen are slouches or inferior in the least - they're simply outclassed by such a supreme performance.]

Similarly, somebody wrote about Hildegard Behrens as sounding "threadbare" in the rôle of Marie for Abbado. That description for me is better applied to Evelyn Lear on this recording, who also seems at times somewhat strained in this rôle even while having some stellar moments (including some excellent very LOW notes, unusual for a soprano: G and even E below the staff - Behrens gets the G but not the E for Abbado {Act II Scene 1}). Perhaps this inclination to a somewhat mezzo or contralto-ish feeling in her voice accounts for some of the occasional strain although her high notes (e.g., C in Act III Scene 1) leave nothing to be desired 'per se'. Certainly it feels more in character for a woman who at the end has lived more than her full share of life in a disproportionately short time, the result being that she's worn down by her guilt (compounded by her inability to understand Wozzeck's wild visions), despair at the dismal circumstances in which she finds herself, and her premonition of evil to come (with Wozzeck murdering her for her infidelity). [This isn't to say I prefer her over Behrens - quite the opposite: Behrens wins for me due to her somewhat classier handling of the Sprechstimme in Act III, Scene 1, even if it isn't quite as 'cabaret'-tish or likely completely what Berg might have wanted (that Evelyn Lear here captures, no question - this is a matter of taste...). I also gravitate to Behrens on account of her tone and overall handling of the rôle. In the end, it boils down to a choice between intensity for Lear (which she certainly has!!) vs. a youthful type of beauty for Behrens in the end (especially in a work that needs all the beauty it can get)... Thus it's a real toss-up: much as I favour Behrens for Abbado, it's a personal thing for me and there's no question of Lear getting other than the strongest of recommendations here - brava!!!]

Of the other characters, Kurt Böhme (1st Handcrafts-Apprentice), Fritz Wunderlich (Andres) and - particularly! - Gerhard Stolze (an absolutely SUPREME Captain - for me and most certainly others, he owns the rôle as much as Fischer-Dieskau does for Wozzeck!!!) are all excellent, comparing more than well with their Abbado counterparts (though Alfred Sramek, Philip Langridge and particularly Heinz Zednik do Abbado no less proud!). Less convincing to me is Hans Christian Kohn as the "Doktor" (here I prefer Abbado's Aage Haugland, who's a real ham!!), though he certainly has his part mastered; while as far as the Drum-Major parts are concerned, it's another toss-up between Walter Raffeiner for Abbado vs. Helmut Melchert in this case (my vote goes to Raffeiner in terms of somewhat greater intensity, but this is a small difference). Still, overall Böhm has a bit of an edge with his solo-singers (a nice touch is Martin Vantin's beautiful handling of the momentary part of the Idiot!).

What makes me hesitate to give this recording a full 5 stars is Böhm's conducting as well as some of Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft's balances. Apparently, DGG at that time in history favoured having the solo-voices placed well forward, even at the expense of the orchestra getting less than full justice - a bias favoured enough of the time by Karl Böhm himself (an even worse example is the same team's live recording of Richard Strauß's "Salome" in Hamburg several years later with Gwyneth Jones in the title-rôle!). The result is that sometimes the accompaniment is so underpowered as to even become ridiculous, where orchestral details get quite lost (e.g., the military band of Act I, Scene 3 is virtually inaudible at the start and remains so much in the background as to never be appreciated for its full worth; another is the solo-viola in part of Act I, Scene 1). Furthermore, Böhm seems to prefer not to have some of his players - notably the tubist - play notes that, being potentially problematic 'per se' although called for by the composer as his preferences, risk going against Böhm's "light" accompaniment penchant. [This is in complete contrast to Decca/London under Culshaw at that very same time, where the orchestra is considered so important so as to have every detail caught, even if occasionally the voices get somewhat overpowered.] Consequently, the orchestra - very good in itself - some of the times (fortunately not always!) doesn't make the full impact it should - worse yet, Böhm's sometimes inconsistent, as at the end of Act I, Scene 4 (where the voice of the "Doktor" has to fight to be heard!). This is where Abbado wins, especially given how the Wiener Philharmoniker outclasses all but those few orchestras in the very same class as itself (Berlin and/or Czech Philharmonic, perhaps the Amsterdam Concertgebouw - either way, a very small number...)!

This same "lightish" tendency also affects Böhm's interpretation, both in tempi and instrumental stresses - there are times I truly miss the riveting intensity and harmonic richness overall better brought out by Abbado, the principal soloists of Böhm notwithstanding (Fischer-Dieskau as well as Lear, Stolze and Wunderlich help redress the balance compared to what it likely would otherwise have been!). [It's here that Böhm's basic shallowness comes out (compared to Abbado), as with his Wagner and Richard Strauß (for those other two composers I definitely favour Solti or Bernstein {in "Tristan und Isolde" for the latter}, perhaps Karajan too, especially with the latter {Strauß} given Böhm's penchant for making cuts!!) - maybe he should have stuck with Mozart (probably he's a 2nd-rate "Kapellmeister" even there, though I can't be certain thereof since he turned me off enough already from wishing to hear more of him)...]

If it hadn't been that this recording is already underrated overall at only four stars (in part due to some people attacking the "Lulu"-torso portion on account of Evelyn Lear in the title-rôle - whether justly or unjustly, I can't judge at this time...), that would have been my grade for it; it's because of it so being belittled by others that yours truly has given it five (especially since it in the end is "Wozzeck" for which this recording pair is treasured)! Thus, it is strongly recommended - but with the definite reservations regarding orchestral and recording balances! [If you want a recording I'll unreservedly endorse, go for Abbado (assuming the CDs match or surpass the DVD I'm referring to). There also seemed to be (from listening to some parts thereof many years ago) some fine things with the von Dohnanyi recording (Wächter struck me as a very fine Wozzeck!).]

This great, classic studio recording of Berg's first opera is the first one I heard, having bought the LPs based on reading a summary of the plot. I don't know what I liked about the story, but I immediately loved the Mahlerian score, especially as presented in such a sympathetic recording. The warmth of both Bohm's conducting and Fischer-Deiskau's wonderful voice, and the chemistry of the two principles still comes through forty years later. True, Fischer-Deiskau is perhaps too sane and vocally balanced for his part,but his performance is still one of the greatest because of the genius of his vocal coloring. Though both Abbado and Barenboim present more of the complex inner voices of the score more successfully in their live recordings, this studio version still holds its own due to the great performers and because the studio mix balances the voices with the orchestra perfectly, allowing us to hear all the vocal parts even in the loudest moments. See Werner Herzog's film of WOYZEK for an interesting presentation of the original play by Georg Buchner.

Unfortunately, I can't comment on the LULU, though the Boulez is generally thought to be the best, and it presents the complete score, finally released for publication after the death of Frau Berg.

I agree with the other reviewer: Evelyn Lear is wrong for both roles. She lacks beauty and silkiness. And she overdoes the "innocent" act to the point where she sounds more like Barbara Eden as Jeanie in the TV show than like Lulu.

DFD, as always, sounds way too smart. That's OK for Dr. Schoen but dead wrong for Wozzeck.

Unfortunately, you sort of need to buy this for the smaller parts--Fritz Wunderlich as Andres, Gerhard Stolze as Hauptmann, Josef Greindl as Shigolch.

My favorite WOZZECK is Abbado's video with Hildegard Behrens, whose instrument is better-suited for Berg than for Wagner.

For LULU, I strongly recommend the recorded performance conducted by Leopold Ludwig in Hamburg 1968, with Anneliese Rothenberger (I don't love her but she's adorable here, especially when she pops her top, as in: "Und wenn er, der Kaiser, von CHIN AUCH WER" and "... er ist blind, blind, BLIND!") and the most amazing supporting cast: Toni Blankenheim (who was Gustav Neidlinger's understudy), Kim Borg, Gerhard Unger, Erwin Wohlfahrt, Benno Kusche.

I also recommend any recording with Anja Silja, who had some real-life characteristics in common with her character.

Esta versión dirigida por Karl Böhm y producida por Otto Gerdes es en mi opinión la mejor que existe en el mercado. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau canta un Wozzeck soberbio. Aún sin verlo, sólo con escucharlo puede uno imaginarlo en el escenario. Evelyn Lear canta una Marie excelente, al igual que Fritz Wunderlich en su interpretación de Andrés. Caso aparte merece el gran Gerhard Stolze en su interpretación del capitán,en mi opinión la mejor que existe en la discografía, siendo una burda copia de la misma la realizada por Heinz Zednik en la versión de Claudio Abbado.
Karl Böhm realiza una interpretación llena de detalles y el sonido de DG es en ésta grabación digno de mencionarse, con un buen balance y sin la tendencia a los agudos típico de las grabaciones de DG.
Esta grabación es el punto de referencia para las otras que existen y ni la versión de Abbado ni Dohnanyi estan a su altura.
Este set de CDs consta de dos óperas, la ya comentada Wozzeck y Lulú en su versión original incompleta con sólo los dos primeros actos y la suite de Lulú como complemento, pero a pesar de ser una buena interpretación, en esta última ópera recomiendo la versión de Boulez en DG, con la reconstrucción del tercer acto por Friedrich Cerha y con Teresa Stratas como protagonista principal.

(This review only applies to "Lulu")

As you know, Alban Berg couldn't finished this opera, the 1-297 measures of the 3rd Act was being finished, but later, Berg, was written last (approx.) 700 measures without orchestration (only with a Piano part and libretto).

In 1970's, Friedrich Cerha was orchestrated this measures and with this version, complete Three Acts was performed in Paris Opera, conducted by Pierre Boulez, in 1979. (The recording of this performance is available on DG Classics)

But, this performance is better than the version of Boulez's. (I have listened both of two recordings). And, even so, this is a live recording from Berlin, Deutsche Oper, in 1968. So, there isn't 3rd Act, instead of this, (with the same affairs) they were performed the last movements of Lulu-Suite (Symphonic Pieces from Opera). These movements are, 4th movement - Variations on Wedekind's Theme for Lute-, and 5th movement - The Last Scene (Jack the Ripper kills Lulu and Countess Geschwitz)...Even so, Berg was wanted this movements to be perform (to think that, if he can't finish the 3rd Act).

The soloists are excellent, especially Evelyn Lear (as Lulu), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (as Dr. Schön), Loren Driscoll (as Painter) and Donald Grobe (as Alwa). It is an interesting condition that, actually Karl Böhm isn't a conductor of 20th Century Music. We know with his historic Mozart and R. Strauss recordings. But in this set, he is amazing in both of Wozzeck and Lulu.

Another an interesting condition that, in "Wozzeck", the composer was used a large ensemble (ex. A quadruple orchestra, plus choir) and this is an atonal opera, isn't a 12-tone music at all. In "Lulu", Berg was used a little small ensemble than in Wozzeck (tripled orchestra, no choir), but this is a full 12-tone music. So, this opera is more difficult to reading the partition (of opera) or listen this music with understands than Wozzeck (it is interesting, but, Berg was written more difficult music with a little small ensemble and his first opera "Wozzeck" is more easy to understand or reading the partition but this is scored for large ensemble). Because, Berg was used 12-tone system at all, so, perhaps, this is more difficult to listen, but if you listen more and more, you will enjoy (!) with this music.

And there is a very amazing music in this opera: Interlude - Film Music (in 2nd Act between 1st and 2nd Scenes). In last minutes of 1st Scene, Lulu kills Dr. Schön and she arrests by police with help of Alwa (Doctor's Son). With a fast fall of curtain, Interlude - Film Music starts and there is a show that a (black-white, without colouring and without sound) short film tells, that Lulu's fortune in one year. Because of subject of film, in the music, starts and moves forwards, than music reaches to a centre (of music) and than, the music moves backwards! (This music was used once again in Lulu-Suite as the 1st movement of suite)...

Best tracks: Act 1
No. 2 Canon, No. 4 Melodram - The Death of Professor, No. 5 Arioso of The Painter (this is a very mysterious music), No. 10 Monoritmica (The Rhythm of Death, this rhythm was used in whole opera, in every passages!), No. 12 (Sonata Development)

Act 2:
No. 6 and 7 (Lulu kills Dr. Schon and arrests), No. 8 Film Music (of course!)

Instead of Act 3 (from Lulu-Suite): Variations (because of the Third act wasn't be found yet) and Adagio (Lulu, Countess Geschwitz...Jack the Ripper!)

Highly recommended for any Alban Berg, 20th Century Music or opera admirers.