Well-deserved Ovations

'Lulu' lands in Rome after fifty years,
by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

As discussed here a few years ago ('Seldom Performed', 11 April 2010, and 'When God and Man Collide', 19 August 2010), Alban Berg's Lulu is rarely performed in Italy, for several reasons: the difficulties of producing a music drama with fifteen soloists (in over thirty different roles) and an orchestra with the ability to marry a nearly Wagnerian symphonic approach with the twelve-tone row system as well as providing support to complex vocal lines (with traditional forms like rondo, arioso, cavatina, ensemble — always on the verge of becoming concertati). As summarized in my previous articles quoted above, the plot is based on two long and verbose plays by Frank Wedekind written around 1905 when, in Vienna, psychoanalysis was receiving increasing intellectual curiosity.
Lulu is generally known to our readers, because, over the last few years, the opera has had several productions not only in Germany, but also in the UK [Shimmer, Sizzle and Shock, Roderic Dunnett, 23 March 2013], the USA [A Painterly Production, Maria Nockin, 6 December 2015] and Canada. The protagonist remains basically innocent even though she devours men (and women) in her life. She starts as a circus starlette, becomes a grand wealthy lady and finally a street prostitute, killed by Jack the Ripper after moving across a corrupt and dissolute Europe — Germany, Paris and London.
A few words about the score. In Lulu, the principle of fitting each individual scene to the forms of absolute music is applied as consistently as in Berg's previous opera, Wozzeck. The melodies are built up on the twelve-tone row system very coherently: there is a basic tone row which is modified to fit each character, a procedure clearly derived from the Wagnerian leitmotif. Also, Lulu has a symphonic approach, again derived from Wagnerian and post-Wagnerian music dramas, but it does not require a gigantic orchestra. Such an approach is blended with modern (ie 1930s) dance rhythm, where appropriate to the given situation, and also to provide a slight sense of parody. Vocally a feature of Lulu is the return to a classical approach.
The Teatro dell'Opera production I saw in Rome on its opening night (19 May 2017) is a joint effort by New York Metropolitan Opera, Dutch National Opera and English National Opera. Stage direction, sets and lighting are by Willian Kentridge and Luc De Wit. As Thomas Piffka, one of the main singers scheduled for the evening, was suddenly ill, Luc De Wit had to play the spinto tenor role Alwa on stage whilst tenor Charles Workman sang in the pit. Kentridge and De Wit's sets, costumes and staging effectively evoke the times — the nineteen twenties and thirties — when Lulu was written and composed.

In the Rome performance, Alejo Pérez conducted the Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, interpreting this difficult score in a very competent manner. The specific musical numbers (rondos, duets and ensembles) that go back even to eighteenth and seventeenth century opera to recall sensuality (as in Cavalli and Monteverdi), following the Mahlerian technique of reminiscence, were excellent. Finally, the dramatic crescendos are intensively built up, and the climaxes of the final duets of Acts I and II (and partly also of Act III) are made much more compelling by the inexorable insistence on the thematic material. The style has nothing in common with the ostinato technique: it is counterpoint which achieves great dramatic tension through an increasingly concentrated density of melodic lines.

Agneta Eichenholz had the title role — a very taxing part as she is on stage for almost the entire opera. She is a dramatic coloratura soprano and received ovations at the end of the opera. In the large cast, there are voices well known in Italy (such as Jennifer Larmore in the part of Countess Geschwitz and Willard White in that of Lulu's father, Shigolch) and singers working mostly in the German world (such as Brenden Gunnell in the double role of Dr Schön and Jack the Ripper).

Agneta Eichenholz as Lulu, Jennifer Larmore as Geschwitz, Willard White as Schigolch and Thomas Piffka as Alwa in Berg's 'Lulu' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. (Photo taken on 14 May 2017.) Photo © 2017 Yasuko Kageyama. Click on the image for higher resolution

Even though the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma audience is not accustomed to Berg's music, the four hour performance was warmly applauded and Agneta Eichenholz received well-deserved ovations.

ALBAN BERG

LULU

AUSTRIA

GERMANY

TEATRO DELL'OPERA

ROME

ITALY

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